head to head · open source
lux vs katana
lux has 31,818 GitHub stars, 3,329 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. katana has 17,786 stars, 1,213 forks, 23 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lux leads on adoption by 79% (31,818 vs 17,786 stars). lux is written in Go under MIT; katana is written in Go under MIT. lux has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, katana 7%. katana was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (crawler), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| lux | katana | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 18K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-03-29 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lux if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick katana if
- You want the katana feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and katana fits your workflow better
About lux
Lux Let there be Lux! 👾 Lux is a fast and simple video downloader built with Go. Installation Prerequisites Install via go install Homebrew (macOS only) Arch Linux Void Linux Scoop on Windows Chocolatey on Windows Cask on Windows/macOS/Linux Getting Started Download a video Download anything else Download playlist Multiple inputs Resume a download Auto retry Cookies Proxy Multi Thread Short link bilibili Use specified Referrer Specify the output path and name Debug Mode Reuse extracted data Options Download: Network: Playlist: Filesystem: Subtitle: Youku: aria2: Supported Sites Known issues 优酷 西瓜/头条视频…
About katana
A next generation crawling and spidering framework Features • Installation • Usage • Scope • Config • Filters • Join Discord Features Fast And fully configurable web crawling Standard and Headless mode JavaScript parsing / crawling Customizable automatic form filling Scope control Preconfigured field / Regex Knowledge base ML page type / form classification (auto downloaded model) Customizable output Preconfigured fields INPUT STDIN , URL and LIST OUTPUT STDOUT , FILE and JSON Installation katana requires Go 1.26+ to install successfully. If you encounter any installation issues, we recommend trying with the…
read the full katana overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lux or katana more popular?
lux has 31,818 GitHub stars and katana has 17,786. lux has the larger community by that measure.
Are lux and katana free?
Both are open source. lux is licensed under MIT and katana under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lux and katana?
lux is written in Go and katana in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, lux or katana?
Choose lux if you want the larger community (31,818 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose katana if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.