head to head · open source
cobalt vs sharkord
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. sharkord has 1,496 stars, 134 forks, 52 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 2,795% (43,316 vs 1,496 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 9%. 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 | ★ 43K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 134 |
| 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 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
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 sharkord
Sharkord is a lightweight, self hosted, open source chat server written in TypeScript under the MIT license. It provides voice, video, text, and screen sharing for small groups that want privacy, simplicity, and full control over their data. The project lives in the Discord like collaboration and communication ecosystem, and its topics emphasize realtime messaging, privacy, data ownership, and self hosting.
read the full sharkord overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or sharkord more popular?
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars and sharkord has 1,496. 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 (43,316 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose sharkord if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.