head to head · open source
lerna vs calibre
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. calibre has 25,923 stars, 2,690 forks, 6 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lerna leads on adoption by 39% (36,053 vs 25,923 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; calibre is written in Python under GPL-3.0. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, calibre 10%. lerna 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
| lerna | calibre | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 26K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lerna if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick calibre if
- You want the calibre feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and calibre fits your workflow better
About lerna
Lerna is a fast, modern build system for managing and publishing multiple JavaScript/TypeScript packages from the same repository, aimed at teams that maintain monorepos and publish packages to npm.
read the full lerna overview →
About calibre
calibre is the official source code repository for the calibre e book manager, an open source application written in Python and released under GPL 3.0. It lives in the content and publishing ecosystem as a desktop tool for books, and it is cross platform, running on Linux, Windows and macOS. The project has been hosted on GitHub for roughly thirteen years, carries about 25,900 stars and 2,683 forks, and its home on the web is calibre ebook.com, where an About page and a screenshots page document it further.
read the full calibre overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or calibre more popular?
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars and calibre has 25,923. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and calibre free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and calibre under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and calibre?
lerna is written in TypeScript and calibre in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, lerna or calibre?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose calibre if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.