head to head · open source
Warp vs WaveTerm
Warp has 65,069 GitHub stars, 5,563 forks, 5,218 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WaveTerm has 22,302 stars, 1,131 forks, 574 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Warp leads on adoption by 192% (65,069 vs 22,302 stars). Warp is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; WaveTerm is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Warp has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, WaveTerm 5%. Warp was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (linux, macos, terminal), 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
| Warp | WaveTerm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 65K | ★ 22K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.6K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Warp if
- You weight community size — 65K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick WaveTerm if
- You want the WaveTerm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and WaveTerm fits your workflow better
About Warp
Warp is an agentic development environment, born out of the terminal, built for developers and teams who want a modern shell on Linux and macOS with AI coding agents working inside it.
About WaveTerm
Wave Terminal is an open source, AI integrated terminal for macOS, Linux, and Windows. It lives in the developer tools and terminal emulator ecosystem, and it is written in Go under the Apache 2.0 license.
read the full WaveTerm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Warp or WaveTerm more popular?
Warp has 65,069 GitHub stars and WaveTerm has 22,302. Warp has the larger community by that measure.
Are Warp and WaveTerm free?
Both are open source. Warp is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and WaveTerm under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Warp and WaveTerm?
Warp is written in Rust and WaveTerm 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, Warp or WaveTerm?
Choose Warp if you want the larger community (65,069 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose WaveTerm if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.