head to head · open source
haystack vs Temporal
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars, 3,384 forks, 143 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Temporal has 24,138 stars, 2,068 forks, 956 open issues and last shipped yesterday. haystack leads on adoption by 11% (26,913 vs 24,138 stars). haystack is written in Python under Apache-2.0; Temporal is written in Go under MIT. haystack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Temporal 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
| haystack | Temporal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 24K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.4K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick haystack if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Temporal if
- You want the Temporal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Temporal fits your workflow better
About haystack
🎉🎊✨ Haystack 3.0 is out! ✨🎊🎉 Read the announcement here! 🥳 🎈 🎆 🪅 🎇 🍾 🥂 🎁 🌈 Haystack is an open source AI orchestration framework for building production ready LLM applications in Python. Design modular pipelines and agent workflows with explicit control over retrieval, routing, memory, and generation. Build scalable RAG systems, multimodal applications, semantic search, question answering, and autonomous agents, all in a transparent architecture that lets you experiment, customize deeply, and deploy with confidence. Table of Contents Installation Documentation Features Haystack Enterprise: Support &…
read the full haystack overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is haystack or Temporal more popular?
haystack has 26,913 GitHub stars and Temporal has 24,138. haystack has the larger community by that measure.
Are haystack and Temporal free?
Both are open source. haystack is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Temporal under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between haystack and Temporal?
haystack is written in Python and Temporal in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, haystack or Temporal?
Choose haystack if you want the larger community (26,913 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Temporal if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.