head to head · open source
go2rtc vs tubearchivist
go2rtc has 14,208 GitHub stars, 1,323 forks, 928 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. tubearchivist has 8,451 stars, 420 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 21 days ago. go2rtc leads on adoption by 68% (14,208 vs 8,451 stars). go2rtc is written in Go under MIT; tubearchivist is written in Python under GPL-3.0. go2rtc has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, tubearchivist 5%. go2rtc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (media-server), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| go2rtc | tubearchivist | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-06 | 2026-08-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 420 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick go2rtc if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick tubearchivist if
- You want the tubearchivist feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and tubearchivist fits your workflow better
About go2rtc
go2rtc is a camera streaming application written in Go and released under the MIT license. It runs as a zero dependency binary on Windows, macOS, Linux, and FreeBSD, and it also ships as a Docker image, a Home Assistant add on, and a Home Assistant integration. The project lives in the smart home and media server ecosystem, with topics spanning Home Assistant, HomeKit, ONVIF, RTSP, RTMP, HLS, MJPEG, MP4, and FFmpeg. It can be embedded into another project through its HTTP API or run as a standalone application with a web interface at http://localhost:1984/ .
read the full go2rtc overview →
About tubearchivist
Tube Archivist is a self hosted YouTube media server that downloads videos with yt dlp, indexes them with metadata from YouTube, and serves them back through a searchable web interface, built for people whose personal YouTube archive has grown past the point where folders and filenames still work.
read the full tubearchivist overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is go2rtc or tubearchivist more popular?
go2rtc has 14,208 GitHub stars and tubearchivist has 8,451. go2rtc has the larger community by that measure.
Are go2rtc and tubearchivist free?
Both are open source. go2rtc is licensed under MIT and tubearchivist under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between go2rtc and tubearchivist?
go2rtc is written in Go and tubearchivist in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, go2rtc or tubearchivist?
Choose go2rtc if you want the larger community (14,208 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose tubearchivist if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.