head to head · open source
core vs koala
core has 8,829 GitHub stars, 2,059 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. koala has 3,568 stars, 456 forks, 45 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. core leads on adoption by 147% (8,829 vs 3,568 stars). core is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; koala is written in Ruby under MIT. core has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, koala 13%. core 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
| core | koala | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.8K | ★ 3.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2025-10-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 456 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick core if
- You weight community size — 8.8K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick koala if
- You want the koala feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and koala fits your workflow better
About core
ownCloud Core is the server side component of ownCloud Classic, an open source file platform written in PHP and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It provides file storage, synchronization, and sharing, and it ships WebDAV, CalDAV, and CardDAV servers alongside a plugin architecture that other ownCloud apps extend. The repository is the main one for ownCloud Classic and serves as the foundation for apps such as Activity, Calendar, and Contacts. Development is stewarded by the Kiteworks Open Source Program Office under the ownCloud brand.
About koala
Koala is a lightweight Ruby library for Facebook APIs. It supports the Graph API, the Marketing API, the Atlas API, realtime updates, test users, and OAuth validation. It lives in the Ruby and Ruby on Rails ecosystem and provides API accessors that return simple JSON responses.
read the full koala overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is core or koala more popular?
core has 8,829 GitHub stars and koala has 3,568. core has the larger community by that measure.
Are core and koala free?
Both are open source. core is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and koala under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between core and koala?
core is written in PHP and koala in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, core or koala?
Choose core if you want the larger community (8,829 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose koala if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.