head to head · open source
cobalt vs SubEthaEdit
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars, 4,031 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. SubEthaEdit has 1,434 stars, 116 forks, 93 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. cobalt leads on adoption by 3,088% (45,722 vs 1,434 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; SubEthaEdit is written in Objective-C under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, SubEthaEdit 8%. cobalt 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 | SubEthaEdit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | Objective-C |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2025-11-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.0K | ⑂ 116 |
| 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 SubEthaEdit if
- You want the SubEthaEdit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Objective-C
- You evaluated both and SubEthaEdit 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 SubEthaEdit
SubEthaEdit General purpose plain text editor for macOS. Widely known for its live collaboration feature. github.com/subethaedit/SubEthaEdit is the main development repository. subethaedit.net is the base for the official releases in and out of the app store. Getting Started These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes. Prerequisites Development is done on most recent macOS and you are expected to have a apple developer account. Clone the repo, and switch to the develop branch Initialise the submodules by Edit the…
read the full SubEthaEdit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or SubEthaEdit more popular?
cobalt has 45,722 GitHub stars and SubEthaEdit has 1,434. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and SubEthaEdit free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and SubEthaEdit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and SubEthaEdit?
cobalt is written in Svelte and SubEthaEdit in Objective-C. 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 SubEthaEdit?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (45,722 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose SubEthaEdit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.