head to head · open source
Rocket.Chat vs cobalt
Rocket.Chat has 46,361 GitHub stars, 14,076 forks, 4,023 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt has 45,722 stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Rocket.Chat leads on adoption by 1% (46,361 vs 45,722 stars). Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0. Rocket.Chat has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, cobalt 9%. Rocket.Chat 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.
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Side by side
| Rocket.Chat | cobalt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 46K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Svelte |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 14K | ⑂ 4.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Rocket.Chat if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cobalt if
- You want the cobalt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Svelte
- You evaluated both and cobalt fits your workflow better
About Rocket.Chat
The ultimate secure open source solution for team communications Rocket.Chat is an open source, secure, fully customizable communications platform developed in TypeScript for organizations with high standards of data protection. We are the ultimate solution for team communications, enabling real time conversations between colleagues, with other companies, and with your customers or citizens, regardless of how they connect with you. The result is an increase in productivity and user satisfaction rates. Every day, tens of millions of users in over 150 countries and in organizations such as Deutsche Bahn, The US…
read the full Rocket.Chat overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Rocket.Chat or cobalt more popular?
Rocket.Chat has 46,361 GitHub stars and cobalt has 45,722. Rocket.Chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Rocket.Chat and cobalt free?
Both are open source. Rocket.Chat has no licence declared in this registry, and cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Rocket.Chat and cobalt?
Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript and cobalt in Svelte. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Rocket.Chat or cobalt?
Choose Rocket.Chat if you want the larger community (46,361 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose cobalt if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.