head to head · open source
cobalt vs Matterwiki
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Matterwiki has 2,093 stars, 174 forks, 51 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 2,085% (45,722 vs 2,093 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; Matterwiki is written in JavaScript under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Matterwiki 8%. Matterwiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (collaboration, javascript), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| cobalt | Matterwiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-05-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 174 |
| 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 Matterwiki if
- You want the Matterwiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Matterwiki 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 Matterwiki
:warning: Warning Expect some things to be broken as we're actively working on a stable v0.3.0 release. Although the master branch is expected to work fine, we'd suggest you to wait until everything is completed. If you'd like to help, drop in on any of the issues or pull requests, or email one of na[dot]nishantarora[at]gmail[dot]com hpkrishna07[at]gmail[dot]com You can also get a preview of the next version on the v0.3.0 / refactor branches What is a wiki? A website or database developed collaboratively by a community of users, allowing any user to add and edit content. Example: Wikipedia Why do you need a…
read the full Matterwiki overview →
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Collaboration & Communication projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Collaboration & Communication field.
Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or Matterwiki more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and Matterwiki has 2,093. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and Matterwiki free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Matterwiki under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and Matterwiki?
cobalt is written in Svelte and Matterwiki in JavaScript. 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 Matterwiki?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Matterwiki if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.