head to head · open source
cilium vs witr
cilium has 25,759 GitHub stars, 4,207 forks, 1,085 open issues and last shipped yesterday. witr has 22,906 stars, 808 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. cilium leads on adoption by 12% (25,759 vs 22,906 stars). cilium is written in Go under Apache-2.0; witr is written in Go under Apache-2.0. cilium has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, witr 4%. cilium was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (containers, kubernetes, monitoring), 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
| cilium | witr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 23K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 808 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cilium if
- You weight community size — 26K 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 witr if
- You want the witr 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 witr fits your workflow better
About cilium
.. raw:: html Cilium is a networking, observability, and security solution with an eBPF based dataplane. It provides a simple flat Layer 3 network with the ability to span multiple clusters in either a native routing or overlay mode. It is L7 protocol aware and can enforce network policies on L3 L7 using an identity based security model that is decoupled from network addressing. Cilium implements distributed load balancing for traffic between pods and to external services, and is able to fully replace kube proxy, using efficient hash tables in eBPF, allowing for almost unlimited scale. It also supports advanced…
read the full cilium overview →
About witr
witr Why is this running? Trace any process, port, container, or file back to the exact chain that started it — one command, machine readable JSON, or an interactive TUI. 🎮 Try witr in your browser → Investigate a simulated Linux box — a guided tutorial and free play sandbox, no install required. Purpose • Installation • TUI • Flags • Core Concept • Examples Output Behavior • Platforms • Success Criteria • Sponsors 1. Purpose witr exists to answer a single question: Why is this running? When something is running on a system, whether it is a process, a service, or something bound to a port, there is always a…
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Frequently asked questions
Is cilium or witr more popular?
cilium has 25,759 GitHub stars and witr has 22,906. cilium has the larger community by that measure.
Are cilium and witr free?
Both are open source. cilium is licensed under Apache-2.0 and witr under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cilium and witr?
cilium is written in Go and witr 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, cilium or witr?
Choose cilium if you want the larger community (25,759 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose witr if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.