head to head · open source
Invidious vs gonic
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars, 2,746 forks, 480 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gonic has 2,544 stars, 156 forks, 72 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Invidious leads on adoption by 862% (24,469 vs 2,544 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.
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Side by side
| Invidious | gonic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Crystal | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 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 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 gonic
Gonic is a music streaming server and a free software implementation of the Subsonic server API. It lives in the self hosted media streaming ecosystem, where users want to keep a personal music library on their own hardware while using Subsonic compatible clients.
read the full gonic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Invidious or gonic more popular?
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars and gonic has 2,544. 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 (24,469 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.