head to head · open source
serviette vs Spanlens
serviette has 58,732 GitHub stars, 1,547 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Spanlens has 13 stars, 1 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serviette leads on adoption by 451,685% (58,732 vs 13 stars). serviette is written in Python under MIT; Spanlens is written in TypeScript under MIT. serviette has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Spanlens 8%. serviette was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| serviette | Spanlens | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 59K | ★ 13 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serviette if
- You weight community size — 59K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Spanlens if
- You want the Spanlens feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Spanlens fits your workflow better
About serviette
serviette Looking for llm app templates? All templates, cookbooks and examples are still available in full in the Pathway repository under examples/llm app . A no code, always up to date RAG server for any vector database — built on the Pathway Live Data Framework. Point serviette at a folder of documents, pick a vector database and an embedder in one YAML file, and run two commands: you get a chat and a REST API that answer from those documents and cite their sources. From then on, any change to the documents — an edit, a new file, a deletion — is reflected in the answers within seconds. serviette runs on…
read the full serviette overview →
About Spanlens
Spanlens Open source LLM observability you can turn on in one line. Point your OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini client at Spanlens and every call is logged with cost, tokens, latency, and full agent traces. No SDK rewrite, no platform migration. Eleven providers supported, plus native Vercel AI SDK, LangChain, and LlamaIndex integrations, and you can query it all from Cursor or Claude Desktop through the bundled MCP server. Self hostable in one Docker command. MIT. Why it exists. I shipped an LLM app on OpenAI and Gemini and hit a wall. The provider dashboards showed total spend and nothing else. I could not tell…
read the full Spanlens overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serviette or Spanlens more popular?
serviette has 58,732 GitHub stars and Spanlens has 13. serviette has the larger community by that measure.
Are serviette and Spanlens free?
Both are open source. serviette is licensed under MIT and Spanlens under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serviette and Spanlens?
serviette is written in Python and Spanlens in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, serviette or Spanlens?
Choose serviette if you want the larger community (58,732 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Spanlens if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.