head to head · open source
Brave vs Thorium-Win
Brave has 23,676 GitHub stars, 3,216 forks, 10,752 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Thorium-Win has 2,533 stars, 54 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 28 days ago. Brave leads on adoption by 835% (23,676 vs 2,533 stars). Brave is written in various languages under MPL-2.0; Thorium-Win is written in Batchfile under BSD-3-Clause. Brave has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, Thorium-Win 2%. Brave was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (chromium, windows), 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
| Brave | Thorium-Win | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | — | Batchfile |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-08-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 54 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Brave if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Thorium-Win if
- You want the Thorium-Win feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Batchfile
- You evaluated both and Thorium-Win fits your workflow better
About Brave
Brave is a Chromium based web browser for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS, released under the MPL 2.0 licence, and this repository is the project's public issue tracker, release channel, and developer wiki rather than the home of its source code.
read the full Brave overview →
About Thorium-Win
Thorium Win is the Windows build repository for Thorium, a Chromium fork named after radioactive element No. 90. It lives in the Chromium browser ecosystem and provides Windows binaries built from the latest stable Chromium source. The repository is part of a broader Thorium project whose main repository hosts source code for all platforms and serves Linux builds.
read the full Thorium-Win overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Brave or Thorium-Win more popular?
Brave has 23,676 GitHub stars and Thorium-Win has 2,533. Brave has the larger community by that measure.
Are Brave and Thorium-Win free?
Both are open source. Brave is licensed under MPL-2.0 and Thorium-Win under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Brave and Thorium-Win?
Brave is written in various languages and Thorium-Win in Batchfile. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Brave or Thorium-Win?
Choose Brave if you want the larger community (23,676 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose Thorium-Win if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.