head to head · open source
cobalt vs partykit
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. partykit has 5,745 stars, 206 forks, 93 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 696% (45,722 vs 5,745 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; partykit is written in TypeScript under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, partykit 4%. partykit 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 | partykit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 5.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 206 |
| 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 partykit if
- You want the partykit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and partykit 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 partykit
PartyKit simplifies developing multiplayer applications. With PartyKit, you can focus on building multiplayer apps or adding real time experiences to your existing projects with as little as one line of code. Meanwhile, PartyKit will handle operational complexity and real time infrastructure scaling. [!NOTE] Current development of this project is in cloudflare/partykit. Documentation Go to docs.partykit.io for documentation, guides and examples. Quick start Note: to run PartyKit, you need to have Node v. 17 or higher installed. You can create a PartyKit project by running: This will ask a few questions about…
read the full partykit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or partykit more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and partykit has 5,745. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and partykit free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and partykit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and partykit?
cobalt is written in Svelte and partykit 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 partykit?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose partykit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.