head to head · open source
chat vs chitchatter
chat has 13,548 GitHub stars, 2,093 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 11 days ago. chitchatter has 2,344 stars, 451 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. chat leads on adoption by 478% (13,548 vs 2,344 stars). chat is written in Go under GPL-3.0; chitchatter is written in TypeScript under GPL-2.0. chat has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, chitchatter 19%. chitchatter was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chat), 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
| chat | chitchatter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-25 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 451 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick chat if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chitchatter if
- You want the chitchatter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and chitchatter fits your workflow better
About chat
Tinode Instant Messaging Server Instant messaging full stack. Backend in pure Go (license GPL 3.0), clients for Android (Java), iOS (Swift), and web (ReactJS), as well as gRPC client support for C++, C , Go, Java, Node, PHP, Python, Ruby, Objective C, etc (all clients licensed under Apache 2.0). Wire transport is JSON over websocket (long polling is also available) or protobuf with gRPC. This is beta quality software: feature complete and stable but probably with a few bugs or missing features. Follow instructions to install and run or use one of the cloud services below. Read API documentation. Tinode is not…
About chitchatter
Chitchatter Logo provided by @ramyashreeshetty Chitchatter is a free (as in both price and freedom) communication tool. Designed to be the simplest way to connect with others privately and securely, it is: Fully open source (licensed under GPL v2) Peer to peer Whenever possible, otherwise a TURN server is used to ensure reliable peer connection End to end encrypted (via WebRTC) Ephemeral Message content is never persisted to disk on either the client or server Decentralized No API server required . Chitchatter works completely without an API server all that's required for basic functionality is availability of…
read the full chitchatter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is chat or chitchatter more popular?
chat has 13,548 GitHub stars and chitchatter has 2,344. chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are chat and chitchatter free?
Both are open source. chat is licensed under GPL-3.0 and chitchatter under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between chat and chitchatter?
chat is written in Go and chitchatter in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, chat or chitchatter?
Choose chat if you want the larger community (13,548 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose chitchatter if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.