head to head · open source
portainer vs wtf
portainer has 38,526 GitHub stars, 2,907 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. wtf has 17,095 stars, 864 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. portainer leads on adoption by 125% (38,526 vs 17,095 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; wtf is written in Go under MPL-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, wtf 5%. portainer 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
| portainer | wtf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 17K |
| License | Zlib | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 864 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick wtf if
- You want the wtf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and wtf fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
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.
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or wtf more popular?
portainer has 38,526 GitHub stars and wtf has 17,095. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and wtf free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and wtf under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and wtf?
portainer is written in TypeScript and wtf 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, portainer or wtf?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,526 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose wtf if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.