head to head · open source
Invidious vs BookWyrm
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars, 2,746 forks, 480 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. BookWyrm has 2,779 stars, 336 forks, 418 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Invidious leads on adoption by 780% (24,469 vs 2,779 stars). Invidious is written in Crystal under AGPL-3.0; BookWyrm is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence. Invidious has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, BookWyrm 12%. BookWyrm 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.
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Side by side
| Invidious | BookWyrm | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Crystal | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 336 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Invidious if
- You weight community size — 24K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Crystal
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BookWyrm if
- You want the BookWyrm feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and BookWyrm fits your workflow better
About Invidious
Invidious is an open source, AGPL 3.0 alternative front end to YouTube, written in Crystal, aimed at people who want to watch videos without ads, tracking, or a Google account.
read the full Invidious overview →
About BookWyrm
BookWyrm is a social reading network for tracking books, writing reviews, and discovering what to read next. It lives in the ActivityPub ecosystem, so users can interact with other BookWyrm instances and with ActivityPub services such as Mastodon and Pleroma. The project is a Python web application using Django, PostgreSQL, Redis, Celery, and ActivityPub.
read the full BookWyrm overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Invidious or BookWyrm more popular?
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars and BookWyrm has 2,779. Invidious has the larger community by that measure.
Are Invidious and BookWyrm free?
Both are open source. Invidious is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and BookWyrm has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Invidious and BookWyrm?
Invidious is written in Crystal and BookWyrm 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, Invidious or BookWyrm?
Choose Invidious if you want the larger community (24,469 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose BookWyrm if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.