head to head · open source
LiveKit vs Windmill
LiveKit has 20,973 GitHub stars, 2,347 forks, 189 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Windmill has 17,957 stars, 1,096 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped yesterday. LiveKit leads on adoption by 17% (20,973 vs 17,957 stars). LiveKit is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. LiveKit has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Windmill 6%. Windmill 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
| LiveKit | Windmill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 18K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick LiveKit if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Windmill if
- You want the Windmill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Windmill fits your workflow better
About LiveKit
LiveKit is an open source realtime infrastructure project for voice, video, and physical AI agents, and it lives in the WebRTC, media server, and voice AI ecosystem. The repository contains the LiveKit server, a scalable distributed WebRTC SFU written in Go and built on Pion WebRTC. It moves realtime audio, video, and data between people, devices, and AI models, while SDKs, agent frameworks, and companion services are provided separately.
read the full LiveKit overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is LiveKit or Windmill more popular?
LiveKit has 20,973 GitHub stars and Windmill has 17,957. LiveKit has the larger community by that measure.
Are LiveKit and Windmill free?
Both are open source. LiveKit is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Windmill has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between LiveKit and Windmill?
LiveKit is written in Go and Windmill in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, LiveKit or Windmill?
Choose LiveKit if you want the larger community (20,973 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Windmill if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.