head to head · open source
wtf vs task
wtf has 17,139 GitHub stars, 867 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. task has 16,326 stars, 941 forks, 190 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wtf leads on adoption by 5% (17,139 vs 16,326 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 | 2026-10-21 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 867 | ⑂ 941 |
| 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
: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 task
Task: The Modern Task Runner A fast, cross platform build tool inspired by Make, designed for modern workflows. Installation • Getting Started • Docs • Twitter • Bluesky • Mastodon • Discord Gold Sponsors Community Sponsors Package hosting provided by Cloudsmith . Tooling provided by JetBrains .
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Frequently asked questions
Is wtf or task more popular?
wtf has 17,139 GitHub stars and task has 16,326. 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 (17,139 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose task if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.