head to head · open source
cobalt vs galene
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. galene has 1,428 stars, 207 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 3,102% (45,722 vs 1,428 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; galene is written in Go under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, galene 14%. galene 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 | galene | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | Go |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 207 |
| 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 galene if
- You want the galene feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and galene 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 galene
The Galene videoconferencing system Galene is a fully featured videoconferencing system that is easy to deploy and requires very moderate server resources. It is described at . Quick start Point your browser at , ignore the unknown certificate warning, and log in with username vimes and password sybil . For full installation instructions, please see the file [galene install.md][1] in this directory. Documentation [galene install.md][1]: full installation instructions [galene.md][2]: usage and administration; [galene client.md][3]: writing clients; [galene protocol.md][4]: the client protocol; [galene api.md][5]…
read the full galene overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or galene more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and galene has 1,428. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and galene free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and galene under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and galene?
cobalt is written in Svelte and galene in Go. 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 galene?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose galene if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.