head to head · open source
Invidious vs songloft
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars, 2,746 forks, 480 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. songloft has 1,746 stars, 143 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Invidious leads on adoption by 1,301% (24,469 vs 1,746 stars). Invidious is written in Crystal under AGPL-3.0; songloft is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Invidious has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, songloft 8%. songloft 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 | songloft | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 24K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Crystal | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 143 |
| 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 songloft if
- You want the songloft feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and songloft 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 songloft
Songloft is a self hosted music server written in Go under Apache 2.0. It manages music files the user already owns and provides no built in copyrighted content. The project was renamed from MiMusic at version 2.0, with old GitHub and Docker paths kept as redirects for at least one year.
read the full songloft overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Invidious or songloft more popular?
Invidious has 24,469 GitHub stars and songloft has 1,746. Invidious has the larger community by that measure.
Are Invidious and songloft free?
Both are open source. Invidious is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and songloft under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Invidious and songloft?
Invidious is written in Crystal and songloft 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 songloft?
Choose Invidious if you want the larger community (24,469 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose songloft if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.