head to head · open source
lerna vs so-novel
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. so-novel has 8,137 stars, 724 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. lerna leads on adoption by 343% (36,053 vs 8,137 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; so-novel is written in Java under AGPL-3.0. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, so-novel 9%. 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 | so-novel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-07-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 724 |
| 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 so-novel if
- You want the so-novel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and so-novel 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 so-novel
So Novel is an AGPL 3.0 Java tool that extracts structured content from web pages and exports it as standard ebook and document formats including EPUB, TXT, and PDF, built for people who want offline copies of web fiction and for anyone turning web content into readable documents.
read the full so-novel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or so-novel more popular?
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars and so-novel has 8,137. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and so-novel free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and so-novel under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and so-novel?
lerna is written in TypeScript and so-novel in Java. 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 so-novel?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose so-novel if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.