head to head · open source
cobalt vs chitchatter
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. chitchatter has 2,343 stars, 450 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt leads on adoption by 1,851% (45,722 vs 2,343 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; chitchatter is written in TypeScript under GPL-2.0. cobalt has attracted 9% 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.
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
| cobalt | chitchatter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 450 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cobalt if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Svelte
- 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 cobalt
best way to save what you love cobalt.tools 💬 community discord server 🐦 twitter 🦋 bluesky cobalt is a media downloader that doesn't piss you off. it's friendly, efficient, and doesn't have ads, trackers, paywalls or other nonsense. paste the link, get the file, move on. that simple, just how it should be. cobalt monorepo this monorepo includes source code for api, frontend, and related packages: api tree & readme web tree & readme packages tree it also includes documentation in the docs tree: how to run a cobalt instance how to protect a cobalt instance cobalt api instance environment variables cobalt api…
read the full cobalt overview →
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 cobalt or chitchatter more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and chitchatter has 2,343. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and chitchatter free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and chitchatter under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and chitchatter?
cobalt is written in Svelte 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, cobalt or chitchatter?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose chitchatter if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.