head to head · open source
wtf vs aws-cdk
wtf has 17,093 GitHub stars, 864 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. aws-cdk has 12,899 stars, 4,631 forks, 2,863 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wtf leads on adoption by 33% (17,093 vs 12,899 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 | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 864 | ⑂ 4.6K |
| 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
WTF (also known as wtfutil) is a free, open source personal information dashboard that runs in the terminal, built for developers and technical people who want at a glance access to important but infrequently consulted data without leaving the command line.
About aws-cdk
AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK) is an open source software development framework for defining cloud infrastructure in code and provisioning it through AWS CloudFormation. It lives in the AWS ecosystem and ships under the Apache 2.0 license, with the core implementation written in TypeScript. The framework offers a high level object oriented abstraction that lets developers define AWS resources imperatively using modern programming languages rather than writing raw CloudFormation templates by hand.
read the full aws-cdk overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wtf or aws-cdk more popular?
wtf has 17,093 GitHub stars and aws-cdk has 12,899. 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 (17,093 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.