head to head · open source
Jellyfin vs hanko
Jellyfin has 57,251 GitHub stars, 5,523 forks, 684 open issues and last shipped today. hanko has 9,032 stars, 1,016 forks, 64 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Jellyfin leads on adoption by 534% (57,251 vs 9,032 stars). Jellyfin is written in C# under GPL-2.0; hanko is written in Go under a custom or non-standard licence. Jellyfin has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, hanko 11%. Jellyfin 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 | hanko | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 9.0K |
| License | GPL-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | C# | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.5K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Jellyfin if
- You weight community size — 57K 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 hanko if
- You want the hanko feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and hanko fits your workflow better
About Jellyfin
Jellyfin is a free and open source media server that lets an individual or an organisation manage and stream their own movies, music, and other media from a dedicated server to end user devices through multiple client apps.
read the full Jellyfin overview →
About hanko
Hanko is an open source authentication and user management backend, written in Go, that gives teams a self hostable or fully managed alternative to Auth0, Clerk, WorkOS and Stytch for adding passwords, passkeys, MFA, social login and enterprise SSO to an application.
read the full hanko overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Jellyfin or hanko more popular?
Jellyfin has 57,251 GitHub stars and hanko has 9,032. Jellyfin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Jellyfin and hanko free?
Both are open source. Jellyfin is licensed under GPL-2.0, and hanko has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Jellyfin and hanko?
Jellyfin is written in C# and hanko 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 hanko?
Choose Jellyfin if you want the larger community (57,251 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose hanko if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.