head to head · open source
answer vs scoold
answer has 15,680 GitHub stars, 1,368 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. scoold has 923 stars, 227 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. answer leads on adoption by 1,599% (15,680 vs 923 stars). answer is written in Go under Apache-2.0; scoold is written in Java under Apache-2.0. answer has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, scoold 25%. scoold was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (forum, q-and-a), 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
| answer | scoold | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 923 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 227 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick answer if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick scoold if
- You want the scoold feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and scoold fits your workflow better
About answer
Apache Answer is an Apache 2.0 licensed, Go and React question and answer platform that teams of any size can run as a community forum, help center, or knowledge management system, and it is aimed at organisations that want their own Q&A site rather than a hosted one.
read the full answer overview →
About scoold
Scoold is an Apache 2.0 licensed, self hostable Q&A and knowledge sharing platform for teams and organizations that want a Stack Overflow style space for internal questions and answers.
read the full scoold overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is answer or scoold more popular?
answer has 15,680 GitHub stars and scoold has 923. answer has the larger community by that measure.
Are answer and scoold free?
Both are open source. answer is licensed under Apache-2.0 and scoold under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between answer and scoold?
answer is written in Go and scoold in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, answer or scoold?
Choose answer if you want the larger community (15,680 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose scoold if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.