head to head · open source
superplane vs shepherd
superplane has 8,766 GitHub stars, 690 forks, 617 open issues and last shipped yesterday. shepherd has 2,504 stars, 219 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. superplane leads on adoption by 250% (8,766 vs 2,504 stars). superplane is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence; shepherd is written in Python under MIT. superplane has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, shepherd 9%. superplane was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (workflow-automation), 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
| superplane | shepherd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.8K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 690 | ⑂ 219 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick superplane if
- You weight community size — 8.8K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shepherd if
- You want the shepherd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and shepherd fits your workflow better
About superplane
Website · Docs · Discord · Blog · Event [!NOTE] SuperPlane is in beta. We are building the Open source factory for one shot engineering . Follow the latest releases, explore open issues and see how you can contribute as the SuperPlane matures. About Open source factory for one shot engineering. SuperPlane turns high confidence backlog issues into verified, review ready pull requests so engineers can focus on work that needs judgment. SuperPlane lets AI agents fully automate routine development work. It coordinates coding agents, source control, CI, review, approvals and feedback in one visible system so…
read the full superplane overview →
About shepherd
Shepherd: Programmable Meta Agents via Reversible Execution Traces [!IMPORTANT] Shepherd is in early alpha and under active development. APIs may still change between releases. Feedback and issues are very welcome! Install Quickstart Permissions Examples Docs Citation Shepherd is a runtime substrate for agent work that needs inspection, reversibility, and supervision. It records agent runs as durable, inspectable execution traces, with retained workspace outputs that can be reviewed before they are selected, applied, released, or discarded. Platforms. Shepherd requires Python 3.11+ . OS level grant enforcement…
read the full shepherd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is superplane or shepherd more popular?
superplane has 8,766 GitHub stars and shepherd has 2,504. superplane has the larger community by that measure.
Are superplane and shepherd free?
Both are open source. superplane has no licence declared in this registry, and shepherd is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between superplane and shepherd?
superplane is written in Go and shepherd in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, superplane or shepherd?
Choose superplane if you want the larger community (8,766 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose shepherd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.