head to head · open source
cobalt vs DesktopEditors
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. DesktopEditors has 5,401 stars, 541 forks, 465 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 702% (43,316 vs 5,401 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; DesktopEditors is written in various languages under AGPL-3.0. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, DesktopEditors 10%. DesktopEditors was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (collaboration), 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
| cobalt | DesktopEditors | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | — |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-05-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 541 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cobalt if
- You weight community size — 43K 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 DesktopEditors if
- You want the DesktopEditors feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and DesktopEditors fits your workflow better
About cobalt
cobalt is a media downloader built around a single promise: paste a link, get the file, move on. It is a monorepo containing the source for an API, a web frontend, and related packages, written primarily in Svelte and TypeScript. The project lives in the modern web and JavaScript ecosystem, and its public surface is hosted at cobalt.tools, while the full codebase is published under the AGPL 3.0 license.
read the full cobalt overview →
About DesktopEditors
ONLYOFFICE Desktop Editors is a free, open source office suite that combines document, spreadsheet, presentation, PDF, and PDF form editors with a diagram viewer into one offline desktop application for Windows, Linux, and macOS, aimed at anyone who works with Office Open XML files and wants a local, no internet alternative to a proprietary office suite.
read the full DesktopEditors overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or DesktopEditors more popular?
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars and DesktopEditors has 5,401. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and DesktopEditors free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and DesktopEditors under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and DesktopEditors?
cobalt is written in Svelte and DesktopEditors in various languages. 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 DesktopEditors?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (43,316 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose DesktopEditors if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.