head to head · open source
cobalt vs Twake Chat
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars, 3,798 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Twake Chat has 165 stars, 46 forks, 317 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt leads on adoption by 26,152% (43,316 vs 165 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; Twake Chat is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Twake Chat 28%. Twake Chat 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 | Twake Chat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 165 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Svelte | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.8K | ⑂ 46 |
| 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 Twake Chat if
- You want the Twake Chat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and Twake Chat 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 Twake Chat
Twake Chat is an open source, decentralized messaging client for the Matrix protocol, built by Linagora in Flutter, and it is intended for individuals and organizations that want secure, decentralized chat as well as for developers who want to build their own Matrix based chat applications.
read the full Twake Chat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or Twake Chat more popular?
cobalt has 43,316 GitHub stars and Twake Chat has 165. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and Twake Chat free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Twake Chat under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and Twake Chat?
cobalt is written in Svelte and Twake Chat in Dart. 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 Twake Chat?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (43,316 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Twake Chat if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.