head to head · open source
shannon vs toolhive
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars, 5,926 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. toolhive has 2,321 stars, 324 forks, 369 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shannon leads on adoption by 2,096% (50,964 vs 2,321 stars). shannon is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; toolhive is written in Go under Apache-2.0. shannon has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, toolhive 14%. toolhive was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-security), 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
| shannon | toolhive | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 51K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-27 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.9K | ⑂ 324 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick shannon if
- You weight community size — 51K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick toolhive if
- You want the toolhive feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and toolhive fits your workflow better
About shannon
[!NOTE] Shannon 3.0 is live: deeper security code analysis, more thoroughly vetted findings, a rebuilt CLI, native CI/CD, professional PDF reports, and SARIF. Shannon is an autonomous, AI pentester for web applications and APIs. It analyzes your source code, identifies attack paths, and executes real exploits to prove vulnerabilities before they reach production. No exploit, no report. This repository is Shannon Open Source: the full agent, run locally from your command line. Launch Shannon The interactive launcher will guide you through setup and your first pentest. [!TIP] AI agents and LLMs: start with…
read the full shannon overview →
About toolhive
The open source MCP platform trusted by developers and enterprises [![Release][release img]][release] [![Build status][ci img]][ci] [![Coverage Status][coveralls img]][coveralls] [![License: Apache 2.0][license img]][license] [![Star on GitHub][stars img]][stars] [![Discord][discord img]][discord] Run any MCP server securely, instantly, anywhere. ToolHive runs every MCP server in an isolated container, enforces identity and access policy per request when configured with an authentication source, and gives platform teams the observability they need to put MCP in production. Why ToolHive? Here are some of the more…
read the full toolhive overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is shannon or toolhive more popular?
shannon has 50,964 GitHub stars and toolhive has 2,321. shannon has the larger community by that measure.
Are shannon and toolhive free?
Both are open source. shannon is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and toolhive under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between shannon and toolhive?
shannon is written in TypeScript and toolhive 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, shannon or toolhive?
Choose shannon if you want the larger community (50,964 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose toolhive if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.