head to head · open source
lux vs Maxun
lux has 31,818 GitHub stars, 3,329 forks, 545 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. Maxun has 18,134 stars, 1,564 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. lux leads on adoption by 75% (31,818 vs 18,134 stars). lux is written in Go under MIT; Maxun is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. lux has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Maxun 9%. Maxun 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 | Maxun | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 18K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-03-29 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 Maxun if
- You want the Maxun 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 Maxun 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 Maxun
Maxun Turn Any Website Into A Structured API ✨ The unified open source no code platform for real time web scraping, crawling, search and AI data extraction ✨ Go To App • Documentation • Website • Discord • Watch Tutorials Sponsors Webshare Webshare gives you instant access to a proxy pool of 80M+ ethically sourced IPs across 195+ countries, with rotating residential, static ISP, and datacenter options plus a full API. It includes a 100+ Gbps backbone, country/city/state/ZIP/ASN level targeting, and requires no credit card to start. Free tier: 10 proxies + 1GB/month · Discount: MAXUN20 Get 20% off your first…
read the full Maxun overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lux or Maxun more popular?
lux has 31,818 GitHub stars and Maxun has 18,134. lux has the larger community by that measure.
Are lux and Maxun free?
Both are open source. lux is licensed under MIT and Maxun under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lux and Maxun?
lux is written in Go and Maxun 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, lux or Maxun?
Choose lux if you want the larger community (31,818 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Maxun if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.