head to head · open source
glance vs deltachat-desktop
glance has 37,086 GitHub stars, 1,463 forks, 318 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. deltachat-desktop has 1,614 stars, 246 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped yesterday. glance leads on adoption by 2,198% (37,086 vs 1,614 stars). glance is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; deltachat-desktop is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. glance has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, deltachat-desktop 15%. deltachat-desktop 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
| glance | deltachat-desktop | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 37K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-05 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 246 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick glance if
- You weight community size — 37K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick deltachat-desktop if
- You want the deltachat-desktop feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and deltachat-desktop fits your workflow better
About glance
Glance is a self hosted dashboard application written in Go and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It gathers feeds and status information from many sources into a single customizable page, so that a user can read news, follow channels and watch server health from one interface instead of opening a separate tab or application for each source. It lives in the self hosted and homelab ecosystem, alongside other Docker packaged services that users run on their own hardware. The project has been on GitHub for about two years, holds roughly 37,000 stars and 1,454 forks, and its topic list places it among aggregators,…
read the full glance overview →
About deltachat-desktop
Delta Chat Desktop is the desktop application for delta.chat, an open source decentralized private messenger. The repository is written in TypeScript, licensed under GPL 3.0, and offers an Electron default, a browser edition, and a work in progress Tauri edition. Its public description presents it as a messenger with chat shared tools and games for desktop use.
read the full deltachat-desktop overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is glance or deltachat-desktop more popular?
glance has 37,086 GitHub stars and deltachat-desktop has 1,614. glance has the larger community by that measure.
Are glance and deltachat-desktop free?
Both are open source. glance is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and deltachat-desktop under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between glance and deltachat-desktop?
glance is written in Go and deltachat-desktop 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, glance or deltachat-desktop?
Choose glance if you want the larger community (37,086 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose deltachat-desktop if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.