head to head · open source
maigret vs Smithereen
maigret has 39,620 GitHub stars, 3,150 forks, 62 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Smithereen has 548 stars, 37 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped yesterday. maigret leads on adoption by 7,130% (39,620 vs 548 stars). maigret is written in Python under MIT; Smithereen is written in Java under Unlicense. maigret has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Smithereen 7%. maigret 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
| maigret | Smithereen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 548 |
| License | MIT | Unlicense |
| Written in | Python | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 37 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick maigret if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Smithereen if
- You want the Smithereen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Unlicense license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and Smithereen fits your workflow better
About maigret
Maigret English · 简体中文 Maigret collects a dossier on a person by username only , checking for accounts on a huge number of sites and gathering all the available information from web pages. No API keys required. AI profiling (demo) . Sponsors RapidProxy provides high performance residential proxies for Twitter scraping, Selenium automation, and web data extraction. 90M+ IPs • Smart rotation • Anti block • Non expiring traffic. Special Offer : Try it free — Plans from $0.65/GB. Use code RAPID10 for 10% off. MangoProxy is a Residential, ISP, Mobile and Datacenter proxy service designed for professional tasks where…
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About Smithereen
Federated, ActivityPub compatible social network with friends, walls, and groups. If you have any questions or feedback, there's a Telegram chat you can join. Building/installation Running directly on your server Recommended: use the installation script 1. Install JRE or JDK 21 or newer from your distribution's package manager, here, here or here 2. Install MySQL. Note: on Debian, apt get install mysql server would instead install MariaDB, which is known to be incompatible with Smithereen. 3. Download a prebuilt bundle for your CPU architecture from the latest release to your server and unpack it somewhere 4…
read the full Smithereen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is maigret or Smithereen more popular?
maigret has 39,620 GitHub stars and Smithereen has 548. maigret has the larger community by that measure.
Are maigret and Smithereen free?
Both are open source. maigret is licensed under MIT and Smithereen under Unlicense. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between maigret and Smithereen?
maigret is written in Python and Smithereen 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, maigret or Smithereen?
Choose maigret if you want the larger community (39,620 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Smithereen if its feature set, stack or Unlicense licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.