head to head · open source
vscodium vs stagewise
vscodium has 33,428 GitHub stars, 1,875 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. stagewise has 6,822 stars, 507 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. vscodium leads on adoption by 390% (33,428 vs 6,822 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; stagewise is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, stagewise 7%. vscodium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ide), 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
| vscodium | stagewise | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 33K | ★ 6.8K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 507 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vscodium if
- You weight community size — 33K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick stagewise if
- You want the stagewise feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and stagewise fits your workflow better
About vscodium
VSCodium is a repository of scripts that automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely licensed binaries with a community driven default configuration, made for developers who want the Visual Studio Code editing experience without Microsoft branding, telemetry, or licensing encumbrance.
read the full vscodium overview →
About stagewise
stagewise is an open source, AGPL 3.0 agentic IDE written in TypeScript, developed by stagewise GmbH, that embeds a coding agent directly in the editor and is aimed at developers who want to browse, build, and orchestrate agents in one place while bringing their own model keys.
read the full stagewise overview →
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More IDEs & Code Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the IDEs & Code Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or stagewise more popular?
vscodium has 33,428 GitHub stars and stagewise has 6,822. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and stagewise free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and stagewise under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and stagewise?
vscodium is written in Shell and stagewise 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, vscodium or stagewise?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,428 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose stagewise if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.