head to head · open source
owncast vs misskey
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars, 1,180 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. misskey has 11,326 stars, 1,615 forks, 2,535 open issues and last shipped yesterday. owncast leads on adoption by 2% (11,543 vs 11,326 stars). owncast is written in Go under MIT; misskey is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. owncast has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, misskey 14%. misskey was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (activitypub, federation, fediverse), 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
| owncast | misskey | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 11K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick owncast if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick misskey if
- You want the misskey 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 misskey fits your workflow better
About owncast
Owncast is an open source, self hosted, single user live video streaming and chat server written in Go, with a React frontend, released under the MIT license. It positions itself as a way to run your own live streams in a style similar to the large mainstream streaming services, while keeping complete ownership over your content, interface, moderation, and audience. The project lives in the fediverse: its topic list covers ActivityPub, federation, and decentralized networking, placing it alongside other federated social software rather than inside a proprietary platform.
read the full owncast overview →
About misskey
Misskey is an open source, federated social media platform that is free forever, released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It is written in TypeScript and lives in the fediverse, the network of interoperable social platforms built on the ActivityPub protocol. The project has been developed for roughly ten years and carries the topics activitypub, federation, fediverse, microblog, and misskey. Its homepage and documentation hub is hosted at misskey hub.net.
read the full misskey overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is owncast or misskey more popular?
owncast has 11,543 GitHub stars and misskey has 11,326. owncast has the larger community by that measure.
Are owncast and misskey free?
Both are open source. owncast is licensed under MIT and misskey under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between owncast and misskey?
owncast is written in Go and misskey 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, owncast or misskey?
Choose owncast if you want the larger community (11,543 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose misskey if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.