head to head · open source
utopia vs liam
utopia has 8,667 GitHub stars, 1,185 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. liam has 5,161 stars, 242 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. utopia leads on adoption by 68% (8,667 vs 5,161 stars). utopia is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; liam is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. utopia has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, liam 5%. utopia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (postgresql), 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
| utopia | liam | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.7K | ★ 5.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 242 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick utopia if
- You weight community size — 8.7K 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 liam if
- You want the liam feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and liam fits your workflow better
About utopia
Utopia Philosophy · Quick start · Features · Roadmap The enterprise world model built by DeepLethe. It is the first open substrate for knowledge engineering that learns passively and governs itself. Where a knowledge graph or a vector store works to hold present knowledge, Utopia puts time awareness and ontology in the base layer: the knowledge system evolves as material arrives, and conflict detection, reasoning and decision making all run against that ontology. It deploys offline, so a company can stand up a knowledge foundation, a decision core its agents can trust, and a compliance audit trail on hardware it…
read the full utopia overview →
About liam
Automatically generates beautiful and easy to read ER diagrams from your database. Website • Documentation • Roadmap What's Liam ERD? Liam ERD generates beautiful, interactive ER diagrams from your database. Whether you're working on public or private repositories, Liam ERD helps you visualize complex schemas with ease. Beautiful UI & Interactive : A clean design and intuitive features (like panning, zooming, and filtering) make it easy to understand even the most complex databases. Simple Reverse Engineering : Seamlessly turn your existing database schemas into clear, readable diagrams. Effortless Setup : Get…
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Frequently asked questions
Is utopia or liam more popular?
utopia has 8,667 GitHub stars and liam has 5,161. utopia has the larger community by that measure.
Are utopia and liam free?
Both are open source. utopia is licensed under Apache-2.0 and liam under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between utopia and liam?
utopia is written in Rust and liam 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, utopia or liam?
Choose utopia if you want the larger community (8,667 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose liam if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.