head to head · open source
colyseus vs canary
colyseus has 7,358 GitHub stars, 666 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. canary has 652 stars, 911 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. colyseus leads on adoption by 1,029% (7,358 vs 652 stars). colyseus is written in TypeScript under MIT; canary is written in Lua under GPL-2.0. colyseus has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, canary 140%. colyseus was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-server), 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
| colyseus | canary | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.4K | ★ 652 |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Lua |
| Last push | 2026-10-09 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 666 | ⑂ 911 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick colyseus if
- You weight community size — 7.4K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick canary if
- You want the canary feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You evaluated both and canary fits your workflow better
About colyseus
Colyseus is an MIT licensed authoritative multiplayer framework for Node.js that provides synchronizable data structures, room based matchmaking, and client SDKs for TypeScript, React, Unity, Godot, GameMaker, Defold, Construct, Haxe, and C, aimed at developers building realtime and turn based multiplayer games.
read the full colyseus overview →
About canary
Canary is a free, open source MMORPG server emulator for the OpenTibia community, written in C++20 and Lua, intended for server operators and developers who want to run their own Tibia style game world.
read the full canary overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is colyseus or canary more popular?
colyseus has 7,358 GitHub stars and canary has 652. colyseus has the larger community by that measure.
Are colyseus and canary free?
Both are open source. colyseus is licensed under MIT and canary under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between colyseus and canary?
colyseus is written in TypeScript and canary in Lua. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, colyseus or canary?
Choose colyseus if you want the larger community (7,358 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose canary if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.