head to head · open source
Windmill vs Toonflow-app
Windmill has 18,029 GitHub stars, 1,100 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped today. Toonflow-app has 16,012 stars, 2,865 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Windmill leads on adoption by 13% (18,029 vs 16,012 stars). Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; Toonflow-app is written in TypeScript under MIT. Windmill has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Toonflow-app 18%. Windmill was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (open-source), 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
| Windmill | Toonflow-app | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 16K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-25 | 2026-09-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| 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 Toonflow-app if
- You want the Toonflow-app feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Toonflow-app 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 Toonflow-app
Toonflow is an MIT licensed, open source AI creative platform for short drama, comic drama and short video production that unites scriptwriting, asset management and image and video generation on a single infinite canvas, made for creators and teams who want that workflow running on their own hardware rather than inside a closed hosted service.
read the full Toonflow-app overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Windmill or Toonflow-app more popular?
Windmill has 18,029 GitHub stars and Toonflow-app has 16,012. Windmill has the larger community by that measure.
Are Windmill and Toonflow-app free?
Both are open source. Windmill has no licence declared in this registry, and Toonflow-app is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Windmill and Toonflow-app?
Windmill is written in Rust and Toonflow-app 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 Toonflow-app?
Choose Windmill if you want the larger community (18,029 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Toonflow-app if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.