head to head · open source
lighthouse vs SnapOtter
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars, 9,765 forks, 470 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SnapOtter has 2,685 stars, 136 forks, 208 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lighthouse leads on adoption by 1,047% (30,785 vs 2,685 stars). lighthouse is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; SnapOtter is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. lighthouse has attracted 32% as many forks as stars, SnapOtter 5%. lighthouse 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
| lighthouse | SnapOtter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 31K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lighthouse if
- You weight community size — 31K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick SnapOtter if
- You want the SnapOtter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and SnapOtter fits your workflow better
About lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open source, automated auditing tool for web applications and web pages. It analyzes a target URL and collects modern performance metrics alongside insights into developer best practices, producing a structured report that scores and explains what it finds. The project lives in the JavaScript ecosystem, is distributed under the Apache 2.0 license, and is maintained under the GoogleChrome organization. It has been developed for roughly eleven years and is published to npm as the lighthouse package.
read the full lighthouse overview →
About SnapOtter
SnapOtter is an open source, self hosted file processing tool in TypeScript under AGPL 3.0. It provides a UI, REST API, and pipelines for conversion, compression, editing, OCR, transcription, metadata stripping, and local AI across images, video, audio, PDFs, and documents. It lives in the Docker based self hosted software ecosystem, where teams process media and documents on owned hardware instead of external services.
read the full SnapOtter overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lighthouse or SnapOtter more popular?
lighthouse has 30,785 GitHub stars and SnapOtter has 2,685. lighthouse has the larger community by that measure.
Are lighthouse and SnapOtter free?
Both are open source. lighthouse is licensed under Apache-2.0 and SnapOtter under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lighthouse and SnapOtter?
lighthouse is written in JavaScript and SnapOtter 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, lighthouse or SnapOtter?
Choose lighthouse if you want the larger community (30,785 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose SnapOtter if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.