head to head · open source
Audacity vs PhotoEditor
Audacity has 18,477 GitHub stars, 2,668 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PhotoEditor has 4,509 stars, 1,049 forks, 57 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Audacity leads on adoption by 310% (18,477 vs 4,509 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; PhotoEditor is written in Kotlin under MIT. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, PhotoEditor 23%. 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 | PhotoEditor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Audacity if
- You weight community size — 18K 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 PhotoEditor if
- You want the PhotoEditor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and PhotoEditor 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 PhotoEditor
PhotoEditor is an open source Kotlin library for Android that adds paint, text, filter, emoji, and sticker editing directly inside an app's own image workflow, and it is aimed at Android developers who need story style or social editing features without building that stack themselves.
read the full PhotoEditor overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or PhotoEditor more popular?
Audacity has 18,477 GitHub stars and PhotoEditor has 4,509. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and PhotoEditor free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and PhotoEditor is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and PhotoEditor?
Audacity is written in C++ and PhotoEditor in Kotlin. 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 PhotoEditor?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,477 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose PhotoEditor if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.