head to head · open source
mocha vs buster
mocha has 22,912 GitHub stars, 3,144 forks, 222 open issues and last shipped yesterday. buster has 9,359 stars, 697 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. mocha leads on adoption by 145% (22,912 vs 9,359 stars). mocha is written in JavaScript under MIT; buster is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. mocha has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, buster 7%. mocha 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
| mocha | buster | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 23K | ★ 9.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 697 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick mocha if
- You weight community size — 23K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick buster if
- You want the buster feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and buster fits your workflow better
About mocha
☕️ Classic, reliable, trusted test framework for Node.js and the browser ☕️ Links Documentation Release Notes / History / Changes Code of Conduct Contributing Development Discord (ask questions here!) Issue Tracker Backers Become a backer and show your support to our open source project on our site. Sponsors Does your company use Mocha? Ask your manager or marketing team if your company would be interested in supporting our project. Support will allow the maintainers to dedicate more time for maintenance and new features for everyone. Also, your company's logo will show on GitHub and on our site who doesn't want…
read the full mocha overview →
About buster
Buster: Captcha Solver for Humans Sponsors Lenso.ai Explore billions of images from all around the web. Search for places, people, duplicates, and more. Supporting the Project The continued development of Buster is made possible thanks to the support of awesome backers. If you'd like to join them, please consider contributing with Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin. Description Buster is a browser extension which helps you to solve difficult CAPTCHAs by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges using speech recognition. Challenges are solved by clicking on the extension button at the bottom of the reCAPTCHA widget…
read the full buster overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is mocha or buster more popular?
mocha has 22,912 GitHub stars and buster has 9,359. mocha has the larger community by that measure.
Are mocha and buster free?
Both are open source. mocha is licensed under MIT and buster under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mocha and buster?
mocha is written in JavaScript and buster in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, mocha or buster?
Choose mocha if you want the larger community (22,912 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose buster if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.