head to head · open source
Windmill vs yao-meta-skill
Windmill has 18,370 GitHub stars, 1,135 forks, 852 open issues and last shipped yesterday. yao-meta-skill has 2,718 stars, 252 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Windmill leads on adoption by 576% (18,370 vs 2,718 stars). Windmill is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; yao-meta-skill is written in Python under MIT. Windmill has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, yao-meta-skill 9%. Windmill was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ai-agents), 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 | yao-meta-skill | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Rust | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-08-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 252 |
| 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 yao-meta-skill if
- You want the yao-meta-skill feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and yao-meta-skill fits your workflow better
About Windmill
Open source developer platform for internal code: APIs, background jobs, workflows and UIs. Self hostable alternative to Retool, Pipedream, Superblocks and a simplified Temporal with autogenerated UIs and custom UIs to trigger workflows and scripts as internal apps. Scripts are turned into sharable UIs automatically, and can be composed together into flows or used into richer apps built with low code. Supported languages: Python, TypeScript, Go, Bash, SQL, GraphQL, PowerShell, Rust, and more. Try it Website Docs Discord Hub Contributing Windmill Developer platform for APIs, background jobs, workflows and UIs…
read the full Windmill overview →
About yao-meta-skill
Yao Meta Skill YAO stands for Yielding AI Outcomes : the goal is not to generate more prompt text, but to produce reusable AI assets and real operational outcomes. yao meta skill creates, evaluates, packages, and governs reusable agent skills. The 1.0 line focused on turning repeated workflows into installable, readable, cross platform skill packages. The 2.0 line expands that factory into a Skill OS: a governed system for modeling a skill once, compiling it for multiple targets, testing its behavior, reviewing its release evidence, and tracking the next iteration. Quick Start · Skill OS 2.0 · 1.0 vs 2.0 ·…
read the full yao-meta-skill overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Windmill or yao-meta-skill more popular?
Windmill has 18,370 GitHub stars and yao-meta-skill has 2,718. Windmill has the larger community by that measure.
Are Windmill and yao-meta-skill free?
Both are open source. Windmill has no licence declared in this registry, and yao-meta-skill is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Windmill and yao-meta-skill?
Windmill is written in Rust and yao-meta-skill in Python. 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 yao-meta-skill?
Choose Windmill if you want the larger community (18,370 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose yao-meta-skill if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.