head to head · open source
cobalt vs jitsi-meet-electron
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. jitsi-meet-electron has 1,632 stars, 510 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 2,554% (43,316 vs 1,632 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; jitsi-meet-electron is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, jitsi-meet-electron 31%. jitsi-meet-electron 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 | jitsi-meet-electron | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-09-10 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 510 |
| 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 jitsi-meet-electron if
- You want the jitsi-meet-electron feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and jitsi-meet-electron 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 jitsi-meet-electron
Jitsi Meet Electron is a desktop application for Jitsi Meet, built with Electron and written in TypeScript under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the Jitsi ecosystem, which provides open source video conferencing software, and it packages the Jitsi Meet client as a desktop window for Windows, macOS, and GNU/Linux. The project addresses the need for a dedicated desktop application that connects to existing Jitsi Meet deployments.
read the full jitsi-meet-electron overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or jitsi-meet-electron more popular?
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars and jitsi-meet-electron has 1,632. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and jitsi-meet-electron free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and jitsi-meet-electron under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and jitsi-meet-electron?
cobalt is written in Svelte and jitsi-meet-electron 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 jitsi-meet-electron?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (43,316 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose jitsi-meet-electron if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.