DeepCode vs symphony
The two are close in size: 16.5k stars for DeepCode, 27.0k for symphony. Over the days we have tracked them DeepCode moved +4.7% and symphony +7.9%, so symphony is growing faster right now.
DeepCode leads on context depth and noise control and customization and model freedom. symphony does not take any axis by a clear margin.
Stars and commit dates come from our own daily tracking. The six axes are read off each project's documentation by our review pipeline, so they describe what a project says about itself, not what we measured in its code.
Where they stand today
DeepCode pairs multi-agent delegation and reusable SKILL playbooks with autonomous, test-driven loops and parallel workers so it can decompose large features, run them in isolation, and iterate until tests pass.
- Stars
- 16.5k
- Tracked growth
- +4.7%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 1d ago
- Language
- Python
- License
- MIT
- Cost to run
- Requires your model API key (OpenRouter or other provider)
Orchestrates isolated, autonomous implementation runs so teams manage work instead of supervising individual coding agents.
- Stars
- 27.0k
- Tracked growth
- +7.9%
- Maturity
- ●●●●●
- Last commit
- 16d ago
- Language
- Elixir
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Cost to run
- Self-hosted — runs on your infrastructure
Six axes, head to head
Each axis runs 0 to 5. The label under a score is what that project's own docs claim, not a category average.
| Axis | DeepCode | symphony |
|---|---|---|
Context depth How much of your codebase it sees before it answers: the open diff, the diff plus related files, or the whole repository. | ●●●●● Whole-repo analysis | ●●●●● Diff + related files |
Noise control How it keeps output volume down — severity thresholds, deduplication, incremental runs over new commits only. | ●●●●● Permission & validation | ●●●●● Human acceptance gating |
Customization How far it bends to your team: custom rules, prompts, style guides, per-path config. | ●●●●● Extensible skills & hooks | ●●●●● Minimal config |
Privacy Whether your code stays on your own infrastructure: fully local, self-hostable, or cloud API only. | ●●●●● BYO API key | ●●●●● Self-hostable |
Model freedom Whether you can point it at any provider, or it is wired to one. | ●●●●● Provider-agnostic (BYOK) | ●●●●● Fixed provider |
Setup ease What it takes to get a first useful run out of it. | ●●●●● Config + API key | ●●●●● Manual setup required |
Which one to pick
Pick DeepCode if…
Autonomous test-driven loops — pick DeepCode when you want an agent that plans, delegates across parallel workers, and iterates on a real repository until the project's tests are green.
- Context depth: Whole-repo analysis (5/5 against 3/5)
- Noise control: Permission & validation (4/5 against 2/5)
- Customization: Extensible skills & hooks (5/5 against 2/5)
- Model freedom: Provider-agnostic (BYOK) (5/5 against 1/5)
Pick symphony if…
Self-hostable — use Symphony when you want an on-prem orchestration that spawns isolated agent runs, produces PRs and CI proof-of-work, and reduces hands-on agent supervision.
What people want from each one
HKUDS/DeepCode
Hacker News: DeepCode: Open Agentic Coding drew 18 points and 2 comments.
openai/symphony
Hacker News: Show HN: Symphony – Use GPT-4 to call functions in sequence drew 93 points and 33 comments.
Questions people ask
Is DeepCode better than symphony?
DeepCode leads on context depth and noise control and customization and model freedom. symphony does not take any axis by a clear margin. DeepCode is worth picking when autonomous test-driven loops — pick DeepCode when you want an agent that plans, delegates across parallel workers, and iterates on a real repository until the project's tests are green.
Which of DeepCode and symphony keeps my code private?
DeepCode: BYO API key (3/5). symphony: Self-hostable (4/5).
What does each one cost to run?
DeepCode: Requires your model API key (OpenRouter or other provider). symphony: Self-hosted — runs on your infrastructure.
Full profiles: HKUDS/DeepCode and openai/symphony. Everything else in Autonomous SWE agents.