gstack vs ruflo
Two of the top projects in Skills, plugins and prompts, side by side: who leads on each score part and who each one suits, then setup, license, activity and what each review found.
gstack
Markdown slash-command skills that give Claude Code planning, review, QA and ship roles
ruflo
Agent harness adding swarms, memory and hooks to Claude Code and Codex
Verdict
Both score 96; gstack ranks higher on stars, 141,194 to 81,475. Of the 4 score parts we measure for both, gstack leads on 2, ruflo on 1 and 1 is even.
- Adoptiongstack leads by 2 points, 98 to 96: close to even.
- FreshnessEven at 100.
- Maintenancegstack leads by 3 points, 97 to 94: close to even.
- Agent-readyruflo leads by 15 points, 85 to 70: a wide gap.
Pick gstack if you are
Claude Code users wanting structured planning, review, QA and release workflows
- Claude Code is the only full-tier host; safety hooks like /careful and /freeze are enforced there
- Skills are plain Markdown, so they can be forked and edited
Pick ruflo if you are
Claude Code and Codex users wanting multi-agent swarms and persistent memory
- One command, `npx ruflo@latest init`, sets up agents, hooks, memory and MCP server
- Plugin-only install route adds no files to the project workspace
| What we compare | gstack | ruflo |
|---|---|---|
| Score parts, out of 100 | ||
| Adoption | 98, widely used | 96, widely used |
| Momentum | Not scored for this kind | Not scored for this kind |
| Freshness | 100, active | 100, active |
| Maintenance | 97, healthy | 94, healthy |
| Agent-ready | 70, partly | 85, ready |
| Facts from GitHub and the README | ||
| Stars | 141.2k | 81.5k |
| License | MIT (permissive) | MIT (permissive) |
| Last commit | Nov 2026 | Nov 2026 |
| Last release | Nov 2026 | Nov 2026 |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Docker | No | No |
| GPU | Not needed | Not stated |
| arm64 or Apple Silicon | Mentioned | Mentioned |
gstack
gstack is a set of Markdown skills, exposed as slash commands such as /office-hours, /plan-ceo-review, /review, /qa, /cso and /ship, that split a coding session into roles: product, architecture, design, review, QA, security and release. Setup is a git clone into ~/.claude/skills plus a Bun-based ./setup script that also builds a bundled browser for QA. Claude Code is the full-tier host; Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, Kiro and others are experimental.
Who it is for: Claude Code users wanting structured planning, review, QA and release workflows
Strengths
- Claude Code is the only full-tier host; safety hooks like /careful and /freeze are enforced there
- Skills are plain Markdown, so they can be forked and edited
- Team mode auto-updates for shared repos with no vendored files
- Installs for multiple agents (Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Kiro, Copilot CLI) via --host flags
Weaknesses
- Non-Claude hosts are experimental or instruction-only, and safety skills only advise there
- Outside reviews need a second CLI (Codex or Claude Code) installed and signed in
- /cso needs a recent Bun with specific build flags plus a native C toolchain
- README leads with the author's productivity claims, not behavior of the skills
- no GPU
- Needs Claude Code, Git, Bun 1.3.3+ (1.4.2 tested), Node.js (Windows only), Codex CLI (optional, outside reviews), OpenAI API key (optional, design binary)
- Models: Claude (Opus 5.5), OpenAI GPT-6 Astra, OpenAI GPT-6.1 Sol, OpenAI gpt-5.5 and gpt-image-2 (design binary)
ruflo
Ruflo is a TypeScript layer around Claude Code and Codex. `npx ruflo@latest init` adds agent definitions, hooks, a memory store and an MCP server to the project, and the same pieces are also published as 48 Claude Code plugins. It also ships a console UI for inspecting agent runs, plus federation between machines.
Who it is for: Claude Code and Codex users wanting multi-agent swarms and persistent memory
Strengths
- One command, `npx ruflo@latest init`, sets up agents, hooks, memory and MCP server
- Plugin-only install route adds no files to the project workspace
- Works with Codex and other MCP clients via `npx -y ruflo@latest mcp start`
- Console limits Claude control to read/write/manage/full levels, default read with ask approval
Weaknesses
- Very large surface: 406 MCP tools, 61 CLI commands and 48 plugins to understand
- Full loop needs the CLI install, which writes .claude/, .claude-flow/ and CLAUDE.md
- Mods are not sandboxed and run with your account's permissions
- Plugin route requires Claude Code 2.1.287 or later
- Needs Node.js (npx), Claude Code 2.1.287+ for plugin install
- Models: Claude Code, Codex, Grok Build, DeepSeek, Ollama
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