head to head · open source
cobalt vs wireflow
cobalt has 44,780 GitHub stars, 3,942 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. wireflow has 4,166 stars, 395 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cobalt leads on adoption by 975% (44,780 vs 4,166 stars). cobalt is written in Svelte under AGPL-3.0; wireflow is written in JavaScript under MIT. cobalt has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, wireflow 9%. wireflow 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
| cobalt | wireflow | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Svelte | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-04-06 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.9K | ⑂ 395 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick cobalt if
- You weight community size — 45K 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 wireflow if
- You want the wireflow feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and wireflow 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 wireflow
Wireflow is a free, open source, browser only diagramming tool for sketching user flows, aimed at designers, developers and product teams who want to map interface journeys without an account or a backend.
read the full wireflow overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is cobalt or wireflow more popular?
cobalt has 44,780 GitHub stars and wireflow has 4,166. cobalt has the larger community by that measure.
Are cobalt and wireflow free?
Both are open source. cobalt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and wireflow under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between cobalt and wireflow?
cobalt is written in Svelte and wireflow in JavaScript. 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 wireflow?
Choose cobalt if you want the larger community (44,780 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose wireflow if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.