head to head · open source
Appwrite vs proguard
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars, 5,725 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped yesterday. proguard has 3,662 stars, 485 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. Appwrite leads on adoption by 1,467% (57,400 vs 3,662 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP under BSD-3-Clause; proguard is written in Java under GPL-2.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, proguard 13%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (android), 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
| Appwrite | proguard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 485 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick proguard if
- You want the proguard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and proguard fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite is an open source backend platform that consolidates infrastructure services—authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, hosting, and real time capabilities—into a single, unified system. It runs as a self hosted service or via a managed cloud offering (Appwrite Cloud), targeting developers who want to avoid assembling and maintaining disparate backend tools.
read the full Appwrite overview →
About proguard
ProGuard is a free Java bytecode tool that shrinks, optimizes, obfuscates, and preverifies compiled Java applications and libraries. It lives in the Java and Android build ecosystem as a post compiler step, not as a source compiler or runtime dependency. The problem it solves is that Java bytecode often contains classes, fields, methods, attributes, and instructions that a specific application does not need. ProGuard removes unused parts, renames remaining program elements with short meaningless names, and applies optimizations such as method inlining, constant propagation, unused parameter removal, and identifie…
read the full proguard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or proguard more popular?
Appwrite has 57,400 GitHub stars and proguard has 3,662. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and proguard free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and proguard under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and proguard?
Appwrite is written in PHP and proguard 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, Appwrite or proguard?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,400 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose proguard if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.