head to head · open source
koreader vs writing-helper
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars, 1,908 forks, 1,345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. writing-helper has 644 stars, 112 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. koreader leads on adoption by 4,521% (29,761 vs 644 stars). koreader is written in Lua under AGPL-3.0; writing-helper is written in TypeScript under MIT. koreader has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, writing-helper 17%. koreader 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
| koreader | writing-helper | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 30K | ★ 644 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Lua | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-02-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 112 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick koreader if
- You weight community size — 30K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Lua
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick writing-helper if
- You want the writing-helper feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and writing-helper fits your workflow better
About koreader
KOReader is a free, AGPL 3.0 licensed document viewer written in Lua that runs on e ink readers from Cervantes, Kindle, Kobo and PocketBook, on reMarkable, and on Android and desktop Linux, aimed at readers who want broader format support, finer typesetting control and better performance than the reading software shipped with their device.
read the full koreader overview →
About writing-helper
AI 写作助手 (AI Writing Assistant) is an open source, Next.js based writing tool that helps people organize style prompts and generate content through large language models. It is written in TypeScript under the MIT license and lives in the Node.js and Next.js ecosystem, distributed as source that runs on a local or self hosted server. The project has been public for roughly two years, holds 644 stars and 112 forks, and carries only 3 open issues at the time of writing. A hosted instance is offered at writing.chixitown.com.
read the full writing-helper overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is koreader or writing-helper more popular?
koreader has 29,761 GitHub stars and writing-helper has 644. koreader has the larger community by that measure.
Are koreader and writing-helper free?
Both are open source. koreader is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and writing-helper under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between koreader and writing-helper?
koreader is written in Lua and writing-helper in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, koreader or writing-helper?
Choose koreader if you want the larger community (29,761 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose writing-helper if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.