head to head · open source
Audacity vs nomacs
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars, 2,712 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nomacs has 3,288 stars, 212 forks, 337 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. Audacity leads on adoption by 476% (18,928 vs 3,288 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; nomacs is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, nomacs 6%. Audacity 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
| Audacity | nomacs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 3.3K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 212 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nomacs if
- You want the nomacs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and nomacs fits your workflow better
About Audacity
Audacity Audacity is an easy to use, multi track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. More info can be found on This repository is currently undergoing major structural change. We're currently working on Audacity 4, which means an entirely new UI and also refactorings aplenty. As such, the master branch is currently not particularly friendly to new contributors. It is still possible to submit patches to Audacity 3.x; make sure you branch off audacity3 if you choose to do so. Build instructions for 3.x can be found here; build instructions for Audacity 4 can be…
read the full Audacity overview →
About nomacs
nomacs Image Lounge 🍸 nomacs is a free, open source image viewer, which supports multiple platforms. You can use it for viewing all common image formats including RAW and psd images. nomacs is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 and available for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac, Haiku, and OS/2. Downloads Latest stable release Latest beta release Continuous builds (Windows) Continuous builds (Linux,macOS) Get the Source Build nomacs (Windows) We assume you have an IDE (i.e. Visual Studio), python, git, and Qt installed. Get all dependencies: Project folders in 3rd party will not be empty anymore. Now…
read the full nomacs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or nomacs more popular?
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars and nomacs has 3,288. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and nomacs free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and nomacs is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and nomacs?
Audacity is written in C++ and nomacs in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Audacity or nomacs?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,928 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose nomacs if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.