head to head · open source
Tailcall vs RWKV-Runner
Tailcall has 7,637 GitHub stars, 1,467 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped yesterday. RWKV-Runner has 6,482 stars, 601 forks, 178 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. Tailcall leads on adoption by 18% (7,637 vs 6,482 stars). Tailcall is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; RWKV-Runner is written in TypeScript under MIT. Tailcall has attracted 19% as many forks as stars, RWKV-Runner 9%. Tailcall 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Tailcall | RWKV-Runner | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.6K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 601 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tailcall if
- You weight community size — 7.6K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick RWKV-Runner if
- You want the RWKV-Runner feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and RWKV-Runner fits your workflow better
About Tailcall
Tailcall is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Rust based developer tool listed in this registry whose repository (tailcallhq/forgecode) and README present it as Forge, an AI enhanced terminal development environment: a command line coding agent that works against Claude, GPT, O Series, Grok, Deepseek, Gemini and, per its own description, more than 300 other models.
read the full Tailcall overview →
About RWKV-Runner
RWKV Runner is a management and startup tool for RWKV, an open source large language model that is available for commercial use. It ships as a lightweight executable of only a few megabytes and automates the work of getting a model running, so that the user does not have to assemble the runtime, dependencies, and serving stack by hand. The project is written in TypeScript and built with Wails, and it is distributed under the MIT license from the josStorer repository. It lives in the RWKV ecosystem and in the broader local inference tooling space, with a companion site at rwkv.com.
read the full RWKV-Runner overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More API Development & Testing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the API Development & Testing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tailcall or RWKV-Runner more popular?
Tailcall has 7,637 GitHub stars and RWKV-Runner has 6,482. Tailcall has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tailcall and RWKV-Runner free?
Both are open source. Tailcall is licensed under Apache-2.0 and RWKV-Runner under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tailcall and RWKV-Runner?
Tailcall is written in Rust and RWKV-Runner 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, Tailcall or RWKV-Runner?
Choose Tailcall if you want the larger community (7,637 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose RWKV-Runner if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.