head to head · open source
lerna vs thorium-reader
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. thorium-reader has 2,872 stars, 237 forks, 206 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lerna leads on adoption by 1,155% (36,053 vs 2,872 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; thorium-reader is written in TypeScript under BSD-3-Clause. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, thorium-reader 8%. 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 | thorium-reader | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 237 |
| 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 thorium-reader if
- You want the thorium-reader feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and thorium-reader 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 thorium-reader
Thorium Reader is a cross platform desktop reading application for Windows 10/10S, macOS, and Linux, based on the open source Readium Desktop toolkit. It lives in the content and publishing ecosystem, is categorized as Content & Publishing / Publishing, and is released under the BSD 3 Clause license. The repository reports 2,871 stars, 237 forks, and a last push on 2026 09 14.
read the full thorium-reader overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or thorium-reader more popular?
lerna has 36,053 GitHub stars and thorium-reader has 2,872. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and thorium-reader free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and thorium-reader under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and thorium-reader?
lerna is written in TypeScript and thorium-reader 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, lerna or thorium-reader?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,053 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose thorium-reader if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.