head to head · open source
cobalt vs sharkord
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. sharkord has 1,559 stars, 152 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt leads on adoption by 2,833% (45,722 vs 1,559 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; sharkord is written in TypeScript under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, sharkord 10%. sharkord 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 | sharkord | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 152 |
| 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 sharkord if
- You want the sharkord feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sharkord 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 sharkord
Sharkord A lightweight, self hosted real time communication platform What is Sharkord? [!NOTE] Sharkord is in alpha stage. Bugs, incomplete features and breaking changes are to be expected. Sharkord is a self hosted communication platform that brings the most important Discord like features to your own infrastructure. Voice, video, and screen sharing without the bloat or surveillance. Screenshots Features Voice channels with video and screen sharing, over a built in mediasoup SFU Text channels grouped into categories, with threads, replies, reactions, pins and search Direct messages between members Roles and…
read the full sharkord overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or sharkord more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and sharkord has 1,559. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and sharkord free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and sharkord under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and sharkord?
cobalt is written in Svelte and sharkord 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 sharkord?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sharkord if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.