head to head · open source
serenity vs Avalonia
serenity has 33,840 GitHub stars, 3,541 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Avalonia has 31,517 stars, 2,826 forks, 1,875 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity leads on adoption by 7% (33,840 vs 31,517 stars). serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; Avalonia is written in C# under MIT. serenity has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Avalonia 9%. Avalonia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| serenity | Avalonia | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 32K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 2.8K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serenity if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Avalonia if
- You want the Avalonia feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Avalonia fits your workflow better
About serenity
SerenityOS is a graphical Unix like operating system built for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. It is written in C++ and released under the BSD 2 Clause license, and it lives in the open source operating system ecosystem alongside other hobbyist and research kernels. The project describes itself as a love letter to 1990s user interfaces paired with a custom Unix like core, aiming for a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s Unix systems.
read the full serenity overview →
About Avalonia
Avalonia is a cross platform UI framework for .NET, written in C and driven by XAML. It provides a flexible styling system and targets a wide range of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and WebAssembly. The project is mature and production ready, and it is used by companies such as Schneider Electric, Unity, JetBrains and GitHub. It lives in the .NET ecosystem and is distributed through the NuGet package manager.
read the full Avalonia overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or Avalonia more popular?
serenity has 33,840 GitHub stars and Avalonia has 31,517. serenity has the larger community by that measure.
Are serenity and Avalonia free?
Both are open source. serenity is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and Avalonia under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serenity and Avalonia?
serenity is written in C++ and Avalonia 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, serenity or Avalonia?
Choose serenity if you want the larger community (33,840 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose Avalonia if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.