head to head · open source
Audacity vs openscreen
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars, 2,712 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. openscreen has 5,859 stars, 394 forks, 43 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Audacity leads on adoption by 223% (18,928 vs 5,859 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; openscreen is written in TypeScript under MIT. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, openscreen 7%. openscreen was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cross-platform), 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
| Audacity | openscreen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 394 |
| 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 openscreen if
- You want the openscreen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and openscreen 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 openscreen
OpenScreen A free, open source desktop app for recording your screen and turning the result into polished product demos and walkthroughs. [!NOTE] This is OpenScreen, continued. Siddharth Vaddem created the project and archived the original repository after v1.5.0. Development moved here with his approval, under the same name and the same MIT license. A raw capture goes in and comes out ready to post — on X, Reddit, YouTube, a docs page, or a landing page. That is the category Screen Studio defined; OpenScreen is the open source entry in it, and not a clone. 100% free for personal and commercial use, with nothing…
read the full openscreen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or openscreen more popular?
Audacity has 18,928 GitHub stars and openscreen has 5,859. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and openscreen free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and openscreen is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and openscreen?
Audacity is written in C++ and openscreen in TypeScript. 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 openscreen?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,928 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose openscreen if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.