head to head · open source
Jellyfin vs gonic
Jellyfin has 58,942 GitHub stars, 5,757 forks, 684 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. gonic has 2,643 stars, 167 forks, 72 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jellyfin leads on adoption by 2,130% (58,942 vs 2,643 stars). Jellyfin is written in C# under GPL-2.0; gonic is written in Go under GPL-3.0. Jellyfin has attracted 10% 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
| Jellyfin | gonic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 59K | ★ 2.6K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C# | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 167 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jellyfin if
- You weight community size — 59K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- 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 Jellyfin
Jellyfin The Free Software Media System Jellyfin is a Free Software Media System that puts you in control of managing and streaming your media. It is an alternative to the proprietary Emby and Plex, to provide media from a dedicated server to end user devices via multiple apps. Jellyfin is descended from Emby's 3.5.2 release and ported to the .NET platform to enable full cross platform support. There are no strings attached, no premium licenses or features, and no hidden agendas: just a team that wants to build something better and work together to achieve it. We welcome anyone who is interested in joining us in…
read the full Jellyfin 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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jellyfin or gonic more popular?
Jellyfin has 58,942 GitHub stars and gonic has 2,643. Jellyfin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jellyfin and gonic free?
Both are open source. Jellyfin is licensed under GPL-2.0 and gonic under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Jellyfin and gonic?
Jellyfin is written in C# 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, Jellyfin or gonic?
Choose Jellyfin if you want the larger community (58,942 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose gonic if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.