head to head · open source
glance vs owncast
glance has 37,981 GitHub stars, 1,506 forks, 318 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast has 11,644 stars, 1,194 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. glance leads on adoption by 226% (37,981 vs 11,644 stars). glance is written in Go under AGPL-3.0; owncast is written in Go under MIT. glance has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, owncast 10%. glance 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 | owncast | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 12K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick glance if
- You weight community size — 38K 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 owncast if
- You want the owncast feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and owncast fits your workflow better
About glance
Glance Install • Configuration • Discord • Sponsor Community widgets • Preconfigured pages • Themes A lightweight, highly customizable dashboard that displays your feeds in a beautiful, streamlined interface Features Various widgets RSS feeds Subreddit posts Hacker News posts Weather forecasts YouTube channel uploads Twitch channels Market prices Docker containers status Server stats Custom widgets and many more... Fast and lightweight Low memory usage Few dependencies Minimal vanilla JS Single Configuration Configuration is done through YAML files, to learn more about how the layout works, how to add more pages…
read the full glance overview →
About owncast
Take control over your content and stream it yourself. Explore the docs » View Demo · FAQ · Report Bug · Report Security Issue Table of Contents 📒 About the Project 🚀 Getting Started 👨💻 Use with your broadcasting software 🛠 Building from source 🚨 Important note about source code and the develop branch 🗄️ Backend ⚛️ Frontend 👏 Contributing 💵 Donors Security 📝 License Contact About The Project Owncast is an open source, self hosted, decentralized, single user live video streaming and chat server for running your own live streams similar in style to the large mainstream options. It offers complete…
read the full owncast overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is glance or owncast more popular?
glance has 37,981 GitHub stars and owncast has 11,644. glance has the larger community by that measure.
Are glance and owncast free?
Both are open source. glance is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and owncast under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between glance and owncast?
glance is written in Go and owncast in Go. 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 owncast?
Choose glance if you want the larger community (37,981 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose owncast if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.