head to head · open source
core vs talkyard
core has 8,837 GitHub stars, 2,064 forks, 141 open issues and last shipped yesterday. talkyard has 1,815 stars, 127 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. core leads on adoption by 387% (8,837 vs 1,815 stars). core is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; talkyard is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. core has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, talkyard 7%. 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 | talkyard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.8K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-07-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 127 |
| 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 talkyard if
- You want the talkyard 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 talkyard fits your workflow better
About core
ownCloud Core ownCloud Core is the server side component of ownCloud Classic, providing file storage, synchronization, and sharing trusted by over 200 million users worldwide. It includes WebDAV, CalDAV, and CardDAV servers, a plugin architecture for apps, user and group management, encryption support, external storage backends, and a comprehensive REST API. The server runs on PHP with support for MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases. Part of ownCloud Classic This is the main repository for ownCloud Classic. It is the foundation that apps like Activity, Calendar, Contacts, and many others extend. The…
About talkyard
Talkyard ============================= Forum software, with chat, and anonymous comments. Thoughtful discussions.  Insightful comments rise to the top. Upvote ideas.  Sort by votes. Question Answers.  Discuss, select an answer. Chat channels.  Pretty basic features. Blog comments.  Listen to your readers. How does it compare with other software?   Find out here . Self Hosting:   See talkyard prod one Demo:   Discussion forum:   Documentation:   (incomplete) Development:   That's this repo! See: docs/developing talkyard.md Features Good…
read the full talkyard overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is core or talkyard more popular?
core has 8,837 GitHub stars and talkyard has 1,815. core has the larger community by that measure.
Are core and talkyard free?
Both are open source. core is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and talkyard under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between core and talkyard?
core is written in PHP and talkyard 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, core or talkyard?
Choose core if you want the larger community (8,837 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose talkyard if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.