head to head · open source
Temporal vs harmonist
Temporal has 24,173 GitHub stars, 2,072 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. harmonist has 2,244 stars, 209 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Temporal leads on adoption by 977% (24,173 vs 2,244 stars). Temporal is written in Go under MIT; harmonist is written in Python under MIT. Temporal has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, harmonist 9%. Temporal was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Temporal | harmonist | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-06-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 209 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Temporal if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick harmonist if
- You want the harmonist feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and harmonist fits your workflow better
About Temporal
Temporal—durable execution platform Introduction • Getting Started • Contributing • Temporal Docs • Temporal 101 Introduction Temporal is a durable execution platform that enables developers to build scalable applications without sacrificing productivity or reliability. The Temporal server executes units of application logic called Workflows in a resilient manner that automatically handles intermittent failures, and retries failed operations. Temporal is a mature technology that originated as a fork of Uber's Cadence. It is developed by Temporal Technologies, a startup by the creators of…
read the full Temporal overview →
About harmonist
If you are an AI agent asked to install or integrate this pack: read integration prompt.md and execute its steps. Do not apply AGENTS.template.md as a live rule inside the pack folder — it is the template that becomes the user project's AGENTS.md during integration. Harmonist Portable AI agent orchestration with mechanical protocol enforcement A drop in multi agent framework for Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Windsurf, Aider, and other AI coding assistants. Built and maintained by GammaLab · @GammaLabTechnologies Most AI coding frameworks trust the language model to follow the rules. Harmonist refuses to let it…
read the full harmonist overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Temporal or harmonist more popular?
Temporal has 24,173 GitHub stars and harmonist has 2,244. Temporal has the larger community by that measure.
Are Temporal and harmonist free?
Both are open source. Temporal is licensed under MIT and harmonist under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Temporal and harmonist?
Temporal is written in Go and harmonist 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, Temporal or harmonist?
Choose Temporal if you want the larger community (24,173 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose harmonist if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.