head to head · open source
owncast vs core
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars, 1,180 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. core has 8,829 stars, 2,059 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast leads on adoption by 31% (11,543 vs 8,829 stars). owncast is written in Go under MIT; core is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. owncast has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, core 23%. 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
| owncast | core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 8.8K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick owncast if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick core if
- You want the core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and core fits your workflow better
About owncast
Owncast is an open source, self hosted, single user live video streaming and chat server written in Go, with a React frontend, released under the MIT license. It positions itself as a way to run your own live streams in a style similar to the large mainstream streaming services, while keeping complete ownership over your content, interface, moderation, and audience. The project lives in the fediverse: its topic list covers ActivityPub, federation, and decentralized networking, placing it alongside other federated social software rather than inside a proprietary platform.
read the full owncast overview →
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.
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Frequently asked questions
Is owncast or core more popular?
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars and core has 8,829. owncast has the larger community by that measure.
Are owncast and core free?
Both are open source. owncast is licensed under MIT and core under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between owncast and core?
owncast is written in Go and core in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, owncast or core?
Choose owncast if you want the larger community (11,543 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose core if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.