head to head · open source
Audacity vs pho
Audacity has 18,538 GitHub stars, 2,668 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pho has 1,165 stars, 95 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Audacity leads on adoption by 1,491% (18,538 vs 1,165 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; pho is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, pho 8%. 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 | pho | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-22 | 2026-08-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 95 |
| 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 pho if
- You want the pho feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and pho fits your workflow better
About Audacity
Audacity is an open source audio editor and recorder written in C++ and distributed under free software terms. It lives in the open source desktop audio editing ecosystem, where it provides a multi track interface for recording and editing audio on Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. The README describes the project as an easy to use audio tool, and the repository contains both the Audacity 3.x line and the in progress Audacity 4 line.
read the full Audacity overview →
About pho
Pho is a serverless photo gallery and synchronization application, written in Dart with Flutter and an embedded Go backend, that lets people browse the photos on their phone and incrementally back them up to network storage they already own, and it is aimed at Android and iOS users who want to replace the built in gallery app.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or pho more popular?
Audacity has 18,538 GitHub stars and pho has 1,165. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and pho free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and pho is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and pho?
Audacity is written in C++ and pho in Dart. 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 pho?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,538 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose pho if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.