head to head · open source
wtf vs task
wtf has 17,093 GitHub stars, 864 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. task has 16,157 stars, 910 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wtf leads on adoption by 6% (17,093 vs 16,157 stars). wtf is written in Go under MPL-2.0; task is written in Go under MIT. wtf has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, task 6%. task was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (devops, go), 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 | task | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 16K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 864 | ⑂ 910 |
| 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 task if
- You want the task feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and task 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 task
Task is a fast, cross platform task runner and build tool, written in Go and inspired by Make, for developers and DevOps engineers who want to define and run project commands without maintaining a hand written Makefile.
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Frequently asked questions
Is wtf or task more popular?
wtf has 17,093 GitHub stars and task has 16,157. wtf has the larger community by that measure.
Are wtf and task free?
Both are open source. wtf is licensed under MPL-2.0 and task under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wtf and task?
wtf is written in Go and task 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, wtf or task?
Choose wtf if you want the larger community (17,093 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose task if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.