head to head · open source
giscus vs pretty
giscus has 12,204 GitHub stars, 491 forks, 127 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. pretty has 625 stars, 29 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. giscus leads on adoption by 1,853% (12,204 vs 625 stars). giscus is written in TypeScript under MIT; pretty is written in Clojure under Apache-2.0. giscus has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, pretty 5%. pretty 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 | pretty | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 625 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Clojure |
| Last push | 2026-05-26 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 491 | ⑂ 29 |
| 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 pretty if
- You want the pretty feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Clojure
- You evaluated both and pretty 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 pretty
Sometimes, neatness counts If you are trying to puzzle out a stack trace, pick a critical line of text out of a long stream of console output, or compare two streams of binary data, a little bit of formatting can go a long way. That's what org.clj commons/pretty is for. It adds support for pretty output where it counts: Readable output for exceptions General ANSI font and background color support Readable output for binary sequences Or, compare an example from Pedestal's test suite: Or, same thing, but with Pretty enabled: The point is, you can scan down to see things in chronological order; the important parts…
read the full pretty overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is giscus or pretty more popular?
giscus has 12,204 GitHub stars and pretty has 625. giscus has the larger community by that measure.
Are giscus and pretty free?
Both are open source. giscus is licensed under MIT and pretty under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between giscus and pretty?
giscus is written in TypeScript and pretty in Clojure. 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 pretty?
Choose giscus if you want the larger community (12,204 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pretty if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.