head to head · open source
code-server vs zasper
code-server has 79,557 GitHub stars, 6,879 forks, 152 open issues and last shipped today. zasper has 2,354 stars, 79 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. code-server leads on adoption by 3,280% (79,557 vs 2,354 stars). code-server is written in TypeScript under MIT; zasper is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. code-server has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, zasper 3%. code-server was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ide), 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
| code-server | zasper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 80K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-08 | 2026-10-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.9K | ⑂ 79 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick code-server if
- You weight community size — 80K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zasper if
- You want the zasper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zasper fits your workflow better
About code-server
code server is an MIT licensed TypeScript project from Coder that runs VS Code on a remote machine and serves the full editor in a browser, aimed at developers who want one consistent development environment reachable from any device.
read the full code-server overview →
About zasper
Zasper is a high performance, self hosted IDE for Jupyter notebooks that runs any Jupyter kernel from a single static binary, aimed at data scientists and teams who want JupyterLab's workflow without its resource footprint.
read the full zasper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is code-server or zasper more popular?
code-server has 79,557 GitHub stars and zasper has 2,354. code-server has the larger community by that measure.
Are code-server and zasper free?
Both are open source. code-server is licensed under MIT and zasper under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between code-server and zasper?
code-server is written in TypeScript and zasper 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, code-server or zasper?
Choose code-server if you want the larger community (79,557 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zasper if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.