head to head · open source
Kodi vs sonobus
Kodi has 21,230 GitHub stars, 6,600 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sonobus has 2,188 stars, 185 forks, 195 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. Kodi leads on adoption by 870% (21,230 vs 2,188 stars). Kodi is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; sonobus is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Kodi has attracted 31% as many forks as stars, sonobus 8%. Kodi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (linux, macos), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| Kodi | sonobus | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 185 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Kodi if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick sonobus if
- You want the sonobus feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and sonobus fits your workflow better
About Kodi
Kodi is a free and open source home theater and media center application, also described as an entertainment hub for digital media. It is written mainly in C++ and distributed as a native application for Android, BSD, Linux, macOS, iOS, tvOS, and Windows, with support for many common processor architectures. The project began in 2003 and is run by the XBMC Foundation, with development and support carried out by volunteers worldwide.
About sonobus
SonoBus is a free, GPL 3.0 licensed, low latency peer to peer audio streaming application that lets musicians, podcasters, and audio engineers send and receive high quality audio between devices over the internet or a local network.
read the full sonobus overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kodi or sonobus more popular?
Kodi has 21,230 GitHub stars and sonobus has 2,188. Kodi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kodi and sonobus free?
Both are open source. Kodi has no licence declared in this registry, and sonobus is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Kodi and sonobus?
Kodi is written in C++ and sonobus in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Kodi or sonobus?
Choose Kodi if you want the larger community (21,230 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sonobus if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.