head to head · open source
Invidious vs gonic
Invidious has 25,830 GitHub stars, 2,896 forks, 480 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gonic has 2,643 stars, 167 forks, 72 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Invidious leads on adoption by 877% (25,830 vs 2,643 stars). Invidious is written in Crystal under AGPL-3.0; gonic is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Invidious has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, gonic 6%. gonic 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
| Invidious | gonic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 26K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Crystal | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 167 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Invidious if
- You weight community size — 26K 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 gonic if
- You want the gonic 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 gonic fits your workflow better
About Invidious
Invidious An open source alternative front end to YouTube Website • Instances list • FAQ • Documentation • Contribute • Donate Chat with us: Screenshots Features User features Lightweight No ads No tracking No JavaScript required Light/Dark themes Customizable homepage Subscriptions independent from Google Notifications for all subscribed channels Audio only mode (with background play on mobile) Support for Reddit comments Available in many languages, thanks to our translators Data import/export Import subscriptions from YouTube, NewPipe and FreeTube Import watch history from YouTube and NewPipe Export…
read the full Invidious overview →
About gonic
free software subsonic server API implementation, supporting its many clients features browsing by folder (keeping your full tree intact) see here browsing by tags (using taglib supports mp3, opus, flac, ape, m4a, wav, etc.) on the fly audio transcoding and caching (requires ffmpeg) (thank you spijet) subsonic jukebox mode, for gapless server side audio playback instead of streaming (thank you lxea) support for podcasts (thank you lxea) pretty fast scanning (with my library of 50k tracks, initial scan takes about 10m, and about 6s after incrementally) multiple users, each with their own transcoding preferences…
read the full gonic overview →
More in Miscellaneous
Related comparisons
More Media & Streaming projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Media & Streaming field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Invidious or gonic more popular?
Invidious has 25,830 GitHub stars and gonic has 2,643. Invidious has the larger community by that measure.
Are Invidious and gonic free?
Both are open source. Invidious is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and gonic under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Invidious and gonic?
Invidious is written in Crystal and gonic 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, Invidious or gonic?
Choose Invidious if you want the larger community (25,830 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose gonic if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.