head to head · open source
giscus vs human-review
giscus has 12,204 GitHub stars, 491 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. human-review has 1,445 stars, 125 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. giscus leads on adoption by 745% (12,204 vs 1,445 stars). giscus is written in TypeScript under MIT; human-review is written in JavaScript under MIT. giscus has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, human-review 9%. human-review 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
| giscus | human-review | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-05-26 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 491 | ⑂ 125 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick giscus if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick human-review if
- You want the human-review feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and human-review fits your workflow better
About giscus
[giscus][giscus] A comments system powered by [GitHub Discussions][discussions]. Let visitors leave comments and reactions on your website via GitHub! Heavily inspired by [utterances][utterances]. [Open source][repo]. 🌏 No tracking, no ads, always free. 📡 🚫 No database needed. All data is stored in GitHub Discussions. :octocat: Supports [custom themes][creating custom themes]! 🌗 Supports [multiple languages][multiple languages]. 🌐 [Extensively configurable][advanced usage]. 🔧 Automatically fetches new comments and edits from GitHub. 🔃 [Can be self hosted][self hosting]! 🤳 Note giscus is still under…
read the full giscus overview →
About human-review
Human Review Edit HTML and Markdown files directly, leave comments like a Google Doc, and send all your feedback to your AI agent at once. Read the full launch post Problem Giving AI feedback on files in chat is painful. Sometimes you want to change one sentence yourself. Instead, you end up typing: In the third paragraph, change X to Y. Cut the third card because it repeats the first one. Also rewrite the CTA. Then the agent changes the file and you have to check whether it understood every instruction. This gets even harder when you’re reviewing a long plan, Markdown document, landing page, or multi page…
read the full human-review overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is giscus or human-review more popular?
giscus has 12,204 GitHub stars and human-review has 1,445. giscus has the larger community by that measure.
Are giscus and human-review free?
Both are open source. giscus is licensed under MIT and human-review under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between giscus and human-review?
giscus is written in TypeScript and human-review in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, giscus or human-review?
Choose giscus if you want the larger community (12,204 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose human-review if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.