head to head · open source
Audacity vs photon
Audacity has 18,631 GitHub stars, 2,673 forks, 1,781 open issues and last shipped yesterday. photon has 3,897 stars, 189 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Audacity leads on adoption by 378% (18,631 vs 3,897 stars). Audacity is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; photon is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. Audacity has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, photon 5%. 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 | photon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | C++ | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-02 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 189 |
| 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 photon if
- You want the photon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and photon 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 photon
photon is an open source Rust library that compiles to WebAssembly for fast image processing in the browser, on Node, or natively, aimed at developers who need to apply image effects from their own applications.
read the full photon overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Audacity or photon more popular?
Audacity has 18,631 GitHub stars and photon has 3,897. Audacity has the larger community by that measure.
Are Audacity and photon free?
Both are open source. Audacity has no licence declared in this registry, and photon is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Audacity and photon?
Audacity is written in C++ and photon in Rust. 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 photon?
Choose Audacity if you want the larger community (18,631 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose photon if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.