head to head · open source
Tabby vs SWE-agent
Tabby has 33,921 GitHub stars, 1,793 forks, 335 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. SWE-agent has 20,712 stars, 2,264 forks, 102 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Tabby leads on adoption by 64% (33,921 vs 20,712 stars). Tabby is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; SWE-agent is written in Python under MIT. Tabby has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, SWE-agent 11%. SWE-agent was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (ai, developer-tools), 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
| Tabby | SWE-agent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 21K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-06-30 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tabby if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick SWE-agent if
- You want the SWE-agent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and SWE-agent fits your workflow better
About Tabby
🐾 Tabby 📚 Docs • 💬 Slack • 🗺️ Roadmap English 简体中文 日本語 Tabby is a self hosted AI coding assistant, offering an open source and on premises alternative to GitHub Copilot. It boasts several key features: Self contained, with no need for a DBMS or cloud service. OpenAPI interface, easy to integrate with existing infrastructure (e.g Cloud IDE). Supports consumer grade GPUs. 🔥 What's New 12/12/2025 Get your GitHub issues implemented by connecting them to Pochi tasks and create PRs directly from the sidebar with a breakdown of CI/Lint/Test results vscode@0.20.0. 07/02/2025 v0.30 supports indexing GitLab Merge…
read the full Tabby overview →
About SWE-agent
[!warning] Most of our current development effort is on mini swe agent, which has superseded SWE agent. It matches the performance performance of SWE agent, while being much simpler. See the FAQ for more details about the differences. Our general recommendation is to use mini SWE agent instead of SWE agent going forward. SWE agent enables your language model of choice (e.g. GPT 4o or Claude Sonnet 4) to autonomously use tools to fix issues in real GitHub repositories, find cybersecurity vulnerabilities, or perform any custom task. ✅ State of the art on SWE bench among open source projects ✅ Free flowing &…
read the full SWE-agent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tabby or SWE-agent more popular?
Tabby has 33,921 GitHub stars and SWE-agent has 20,712. Tabby has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tabby and SWE-agent free?
Both are open source. Tabby has no licence declared in this registry, and SWE-agent is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Tabby and SWE-agent?
Tabby is written in Rust and SWE-agent 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, Tabby or SWE-agent?
Choose Tabby if you want the larger community (33,921 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose SWE-agent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.