head to head · open source
gradle vs sandboxd
gradle has 18,918 GitHub stars, 5,264 forks, 3,494 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sandboxd has 976 stars, 69 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gradle leads on adoption by 1,838% (18,918 vs 976 stars). gradle is written in Groovy under Apache-2.0; sandboxd is written in Go under MIT. gradle has attracted 28% as many forks as stars, sandboxd 7%. sandboxd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| gradle | sandboxd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 976 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Groovy | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.3K | ⑂ 69 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gradle if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Groovy
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sandboxd if
- You want the sandboxd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and sandboxd fits your workflow better
About gradle
🐘 Gradle Build Tool Gradle is a highly scalable build automation tool designed to handle everything from large, multi project enterprise builds to quick development tasks across various languages. Gradle’s modular, performance oriented architecture seamlessly integrates with development environments, making it a go to solution for building, testing, and deploying applications on Java , Kotlin , Scala , Android , Groovy , C++ , and Swift . For a comprehensive overview, please visit the official Gradle project homepage. 🚀 Getting Started Starting with Gradle is easy with these essential resources. Follow these…
read the full gradle overview →
About sandboxd
sandboxd Open source, self hosted AI app builder. Prompt it and a coding agent builds real apps in isolated sandboxes on your server — each live at a preview URL. You own the infra, code, and data. MIT. 🔥 Trend of the Day on Trendshift Prompt → a real, running app on your server, at its own URL. See it in action 👇 1 · Build from a prompt — an agent builds it in an isolated sandbox, live at a preview URL. 2 · Or run an existing app — n8n, Ghost, Grafana… 80+ curated apps, one click. 3 · Or drive the API — every action is a /v1 call, headless & scriptable. ▶ Try the live demo Click around a real console with…
read the full sandboxd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gradle or sandboxd more popular?
gradle has 18,918 GitHub stars and sandboxd has 976. gradle has the larger community by that measure.
Are gradle and sandboxd free?
Both are open source. gradle is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sandboxd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gradle and sandboxd?
gradle is written in Groovy and sandboxd in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gradle or sandboxd?
Choose gradle if you want the larger community (18,918 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sandboxd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.