head to head · open source
Skyvern vs fess
Skyvern has 23,336 GitHub stars, 2,236 forks, 234 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fess has 1,142 stars, 177 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Skyvern leads on adoption by 1,943% (23,336 vs 1,142 stars). Skyvern is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; fess is written in Java under Apache-2.0. Skyvern has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, fess 15%. Skyvern 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
| Skyvern | fess | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 177 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Skyvern if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick fess if
- You want the fess feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and fess fits your workflow better
About Skyvern
🐉 Automate Browser based workflows using LLMs and Computer Vision 🐉 Skyvern automates browser based workflows using LLMs and computer vision. It provides a Playwright compatible SDK that adds AI functionality on top of playwright, as well as a no code workflow builder to help both technical and non technical users automate manual workflows on any website, replacing brittle or unreliable automation solutions. Traditional approaches to browser automations required writing custom scripts for websites, often relying on DOM parsing and XPath based interactions which would break whenever the website layouts changed…
read the full Skyvern overview →
About fess
Fess: Enterprise Search Server Overview Fess is an enterprise search server that you can install and run on any platform with a Java runtime. It is built on OpenSearch, but prior OpenSearch knowledge is not required: Fess is configured through a browser based administration UI. A built in crawler collects documents from web sites, file systems, and data stores such as databases and CSV files. Many file formats are supported, including Microsoft Office, PDF, and ZIP archives. Fess Site Search is a free alternative to Google Site Search that you can embed in your own website. For details, see the FSS JS Generator…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Skyvern or fess more popular?
Skyvern has 23,336 GitHub stars and fess has 1,142. Skyvern has the larger community by that measure.
Are Skyvern and fess free?
Both are open source. Skyvern is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and fess under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Skyvern and fess?
Skyvern is written in Python and fess in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Skyvern or fess?
Choose Skyvern if you want the larger community (23,336 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose fess if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.