head to head · open source
lerna vs citadel
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. citadel has 1,276 stars, 20 forks, 10 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lerna leads on adoption by 2,725% (36,053 vs 1,276 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; citadel is written in Rust under MIT. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, citadel 2%. citadel 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 | citadel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 20 |
| 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 citadel if
- You want the citadel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and citadel 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 citadel
Citadel is a desktop application for managing ebook libraries, written in Rust and released under the MIT license. It is positioned inside the Calibre ecosystem as a backwards compatible manager for ebook collections, with the stated goal that Calibre must be able to read any library that Citadel has edited. The project targets users who want a faster and easier to use interface for organizing ebooks, especially epub files, without replacing the Calibre library format.
read the full citadel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or citadel more popular?
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars and citadel has 1,276. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and citadel free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and citadel under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and citadel?
lerna is written in TypeScript and citadel in Rust. 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 citadel?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose citadel if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.