head to head · open source
Windmill vs Botpress
Windmill has 17,957 GitHub stars, 1,096 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Botpress has 14,920 stars, 2,293 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Windmill leads on adoption by 20% (17,957 vs 14,920 stars). Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; Botpress is written in TypeScript under MIT. Windmill has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Botpress 15%. Botpress 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
| Windmill | Botpress | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 15K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 2.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Windmill if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Botpress if
- You want the Botpress feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Botpress fits your workflow better
About Windmill
Windmill is an open source developer platform for internal code, including APIs, background jobs, workflows, and UIs. It lives in the self hostable low code automation ecosystem and supports Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash, SQL, GraphQL, PowerShell, Rust, and more. The project is positioned as an open source alternative to Zapier and, in the README, to Retool, Pipedream, Superblocks, and a simplified Temporal.
read the full Windmill overview →
About Botpress
Botpress is open source hub to build and deploy GPT/LLM agents. It lives in Botpress Cloud ecosystem. Project uses TypeScript, MIT license, npm packages @botpress/cli and @botpress/sdk. Repository contains public integrations, devtools, example bots as code, and plugins for Botpress Studio, marked coming soon.
read the full Botpress overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Windmill or Botpress more popular?
Windmill has 17,957 GitHub stars and Botpress has 14,920. Windmill has the larger community by that measure.
Are Windmill and Botpress free?
Both are open source. Windmill has no licence declared in this registry, and Botpress is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Windmill and Botpress?
Windmill is written in Rust and Botpress 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, Windmill or Botpress?
Choose Windmill if you want the larger community (17,957 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Botpress if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.