head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs Helium
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars, 4,167 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Helium has 22,283 stars, 680 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 111% (46,944 vs 22,283 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; Helium is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Helium 3%. monaco-editor 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| monaco-editor | Helium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 22K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 680 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monaco-editor if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 monaco-editor
Monaco Editor The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code. Check out the VS Code docs to see some of the supported features. Try it out Try out the editor and see various examples in our interactive playground. The playground is the best way to learn about how to use the editor, which features is supports, to try out different versions and to create minimal reproducible examples for bug reports. Installing You will get: inside /esm : ESM version of the editor (compatible with e.g. webpack) monaco.d.ts : this specifies the API of the editor (this is what is actually versioned, everything else…
read the full monaco-editor 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 →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Browsers & Extensions projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Browsers & Extensions field.
Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or Helium more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,944 GitHub stars and Helium has 22,283. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and Helium free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and Helium under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and Helium?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript 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, monaco-editor or Helium?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,944 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Helium if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.