head to head · open source
Gumroad vs CourseLit
Gumroad has 10,075 GitHub stars, 2,108 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped yesterday. CourseLit has 1,294 stars, 267 forks, 252 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Gumroad leads on adoption by 679% (10,075 vs 1,294 stars). Gumroad is written in Ruby under MIT; CourseLit is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Gumroad has attracted 21% as many forks as stars, CourseLit 21%. Gumroad 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Gumroad | CourseLit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.1K | ⑂ 267 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Gumroad if
- You weight community size — 10K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick CourseLit if
- You want the CourseLit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and CourseLit fits your workflow better
About Gumroad
See what sticks. Gumroad is an e commerce platform that enables creators to sell products directly to consumers. This repository contains the source code for the Gumroad web application. Contributing We don't run an inbound review queue on this repo. To contribute a change: fork the repo, open the pull request on your own fork, then email support@gumroad.com with a link to it. We read every submission and merge the ones we want on our side, keeping your authorship — though we can't promise a reply to each one or a timeline. Your PR still has to meet the same bar as our own work — visual evidence for anything…
read the full Gumroad overview →
About CourseLit
CourseLit Sell online courses and digital downloads from your own website. An open source alternative to Teachable, Thinkific, Podia and the likes. Website Documentation Roadmap A modern LMS for everyone CourseLit is a batteries included learning management system (aka LMS) for everyone. It is an open source alternative to Teachable, Thinkific, Podia, Teachery, LearnDash and the likes. It comes pre equipped with all the basic tools you need to efficiently run and administer your online teaching business. Features include course authoring, student management, payment processing (via Stripe), website builder…
read the full CourseLit overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Learning Management Systems (LMS) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Learning Management Systems (LMS) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Gumroad or CourseLit more popular?
Gumroad has 10,075 GitHub stars and CourseLit has 1,294. Gumroad has the larger community by that measure.
Are Gumroad and CourseLit free?
Both are open source. Gumroad is licensed under MIT and CourseLit under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Gumroad and CourseLit?
Gumroad is written in Ruby and CourseLit 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, Gumroad or CourseLit?
Choose Gumroad if you want the larger community (10,075 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose CourseLit if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.