head to head · open source
lux vs ArchiveBox
lux has 31,696 GitHub stars, 3,313 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. ArchiveBox has 28,553 stars, 1,604 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. lux leads on adoption by 11% (31,696 vs 28,553 stars). lux is written in Go under MIT; ArchiveBox is written in Python under MIT. lux has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, ArchiveBox 6%. ArchiveBox was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| lux | ArchiveBox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 29K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-03-29 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lux if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ArchiveBox if
- You want the ArchiveBox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and ArchiveBox fits your workflow better
About lux
Lux is a video download library and command line tool written in Go, released under the MIT license. It ships as a single lux binary that takes one or more URLs and retrieves the underlying media streams, and it also exposes the downloading logic as a Go library that other programs can embed. The project has existed for roughly nine years and lives in the Go ecosystem, distributed through go install alongside the usual operating system package managers.
About ArchiveBox
ArchiveBox is an open source, self hosted web archiving application that lets individuals and organizations preserve public and private web content in durable, readable formats while keeping control of their own data.
read the full ArchiveBox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lux or ArchiveBox more popular?
lux has 31,696 GitHub stars and ArchiveBox has 28,553. lux has the larger community by that measure.
Are lux and ArchiveBox free?
Both are open source. lux is licensed under MIT and ArchiveBox under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lux and ArchiveBox?
lux is written in Go and ArchiveBox in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, lux or ArchiveBox?
Choose lux if you want the larger community (31,696 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ArchiveBox if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.