head to head · open source
Avalonia vs Helium
Avalonia has 31,747 GitHub stars, 2,877 forks, 1,875 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Helium has 22,283 stars, 680 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Avalonia leads on adoption by 42% (31,747 vs 22,283 stars). Avalonia is written in C# under MIT; Helium is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Avalonia has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Helium 3%. Avalonia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| Avalonia | Helium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 22K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C# | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 680 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Avalonia if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Helium if
- You want the Helium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Helium fits your workflow better
About Avalonia
📖 About Avalonia is a cross platform UI framework for dotnet, providing a flexible styling system and supporting a wide range of platforms such as Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and WebAssembly. Avalonia is mature and production ready and is used by companies, including Schneider Electric, Unity, JetBrains and GitHub. Considered by many to be the spiritual successor to WPF, Avalonia UI provides a familiar, modern development experience for XAML developers creating cross platform applications. While Avalonia UI is similar to WPF, it isn't a 1:1 copy, and you'll find plenty of improvements. For those seeking…
read the full Avalonia overview →
About Helium
Helium The Chromium based web browser made for people, with love. Privacy first with unbiased ad blocking. No bloat and no noise. helium.computer Downloads [!NOTE] Helium is currently in beta, so unexpected issues may occur. Please report them if they haven't already been reported. The easiest way to download Helium is helium.computer. It'll pick a compatible binary for your platform automatically. The same releases can also be downloaded from source on GitHub: Latest macOS release Latest Linux release Latest Windows release Helium repos All Helium packaging, tooling, services, and components are open source and…
read the full Helium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Avalonia or Helium more popular?
Avalonia has 31,747 GitHub stars and Helium has 22,283. Avalonia has the larger community by that measure.
Are Avalonia and Helium free?
Both are open source. Avalonia is licensed under MIT and Helium under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Avalonia and Helium?
Avalonia is written in C# and Helium in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Avalonia or Helium?
Choose Avalonia if you want the larger community (31,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Helium if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.