head to head · open source
Kodi vs tvheadend
Kodi has 21,229 GitHub stars, 6,598 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tvheadend has 3,521 stars, 975 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Kodi leads on adoption by 503% (21,229 vs 3,521 stars). Kodi is written in C++ under a custom or non-standard licence; tvheadend is written in C under GPL-3.0. Kodi has attracted 31% as many forks as stars, tvheadend 28%. Kodi 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
| Kodi | tvheadend | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.6K | ⑂ 975 |
| 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 tvheadend if
- You want the tvheadend 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 tvheadend 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 tvheadend
Tvheadend is an open source TV streaming server and digital video recorder for Linux. It lives in the Linux media and streaming ecosystem, and it is written in C under the GPL 3.0 license. The project provides a server that can receive television signals and streams from many input types, then make those channels available over the network.
read the full tvheadend overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Kodi or tvheadend more popular?
Kodi has 21,229 GitHub stars and tvheadend has 3,521. Kodi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Kodi and tvheadend free?
Both are open source. Kodi has no licence declared in this registry, and tvheadend is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Kodi and tvheadend?
Kodi is written in C++ and tvheadend 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 tvheadend?
Choose Kodi if you want the larger community (21,229 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose tvheadend if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.