head to head · open source
CodeEdit vs metals
CodeEdit has 23,062 GitHub stars, 1,192 forks, 213 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. metals has 2,333 stars, 445 forks, 282 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CodeEdit leads on adoption by 889% (23,062 vs 2,333 stars). CodeEdit is written in Swift under MIT; metals is written in Scala under Apache-2.0. CodeEdit has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, metals 19%. metals 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
| CodeEdit | metals | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Swift | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-08-18 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 445 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick CodeEdit if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick metals if
- You want the metals feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and metals fits your workflow better
About CodeEdit
CodeEdit is a code editor for macOS. It is written in Swift, released under the MIT license, and described as a community project. The GitHub description says the app is open source and free forever. The project aims to provide a native editing experience for developers who work on software outside Apple platform projects.
read the full CodeEdit overview →
About metals
Metals is a Scala language server that brings rich IDE features to editors supporting the Language Server Protocol, aimed at Scala developers who want full tooling outside of IntelliJ IDEA.
read the full metals overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is CodeEdit or metals more popular?
CodeEdit has 23,062 GitHub stars and metals has 2,333. CodeEdit has the larger community by that measure.
Are CodeEdit and metals free?
Both are open source. CodeEdit is licensed under MIT and metals under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between CodeEdit and metals?
CodeEdit is written in Swift and metals in Scala. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, CodeEdit or metals?
Choose CodeEdit if you want the larger community (23,062 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose metals if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.