head to head · open source
wtf vs aws-cdk
wtf has 17,139 GitHub stars, 867 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. aws-cdk has 12,958 stars, 4,665 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wtf leads on adoption by 32% (17,139 vs 12,958 stars). wtf is written in Go under MPL-2.0; aws-cdk is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. wtf has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, aws-cdk 36%. aws-cdk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (hacktoberfest), 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
| wtf | aws-cdk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 13K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-21 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 867 | ⑂ 4.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wtf if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick aws-cdk if
- You want the aws-cdk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and aws-cdk fits your workflow better
About wtf
:rotating light: :warning: This project is going through some changes as we prepare for v1.0. This includes a rename from WTF to Tessera ! Stay tuned! :warning: :rotating light: WTF (aka 'wtfutil') is the personal information dashboard for your terminal, providing at a glance access to your very important but infrequently needed stats and data. Used by thousands of developers and tech people around the world, WTF is free and open source. To support the continued use and development of WTF, please consider sponsoring WTF via GitHub Sponsors. Are you a contributor or sponsor? Awesome! See here for how you can…
About aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) The AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework to define cloud infrastructure in code and provision it through AWS CloudFormation. It offers a high level object oriented abstraction to define AWS resources imperatively using the power of modern programming languages. Using the CDK’s library of infrastructure constructs, you can easily encapsulate AWS best practices in your infrastructure definition and share it without worrying about boilerplate logic. The CDK is available in the following languages: JavaScript, TypeScript (Node.js =…
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wtf or aws-cdk more popular?
wtf has 17,139 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,958. wtf has the larger community by that measure.
Are wtf and aws-cdk free?
Both are open source. wtf is licensed under MPL-2.0 and aws-cdk under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wtf and aws-cdk?
wtf is written in Go and aws-cdk 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, wtf or aws-cdk?
Choose wtf if you want the larger community (17,139 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose aws-cdk if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.