head to head · open source
Huly vs chat
Huly has 28,042 GitHub stars, 2,187 forks, 849 open issues and last shipped yesterday. chat has 13,547 stars, 2,093 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Huly leads on adoption by 107% (28,042 vs 13,547 stars). Huly is written in TypeScript under EPL-2.0; chat is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Huly has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, chat 15%. Huly was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chat-application), 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
| Huly | chat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 14K |
| License | EPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.2K | ⑂ 2.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Huly if
- You weight community size — 28K stars and counting
- You want the EPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick chat if
- You want the chat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and chat fits your workflow better
About Huly
Huly Platform ⭐️ Your star shines on us. Star us on GitHub! [!IMPORTANT] Hosted Huly is shutting down — please migrate your data. The hosted Huly service is being discontinued because its hosting is no longer being funded. If you keep important data on the hosted platform, export and back it up, and migrate as soon as possible — we can help you move to either a self hosted setup or a hosted option. Not sure how? Follow the backup & restore guide for step by step instructions on downloading your backup and restoring it elsewhere. The service shutdown is expected on July 20 . Please make sure to export and migrate…
About chat
Tinode Instant Messaging Server Instant messaging full stack. Backend in pure Go (license GPL 3.0), clients for Android (Java), iOS (Swift), and web (ReactJS), as well as gRPC client support for C++, C , Go, Java, Node, PHP, Python, Ruby, Objective C, etc (all clients licensed under Apache 2.0). Wire transport is JSON over websocket (long polling is also available) or protobuf with gRPC. This is beta quality software: feature complete and stable but probably with a few bugs or missing features. Follow instructions to install and run or use one of the cloud services below. Read API documentation. Tinode is not…
More in Business Software
Related comparisons
More Collaboration & Communication projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Collaboration & Communication field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Huly or chat more popular?
Huly has 28,042 GitHub stars and chat has 13,547. Huly has the larger community by that measure.
Are Huly and chat free?
Both are open source. Huly is licensed under EPL-2.0 and chat under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Huly and chat?
Huly is written in TypeScript and chat 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, Huly or chat?
Choose Huly if you want the larger community (28,042 stars) or its EPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose chat if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.