head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs ghostty-web
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars, 4,131 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. ghostty-web has 2,852 stars, 173 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 1,540% (46,766 vs 2,852 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; ghostty-web is written in TypeScript under MIT. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ghostty-web 6%. monaco-editor was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| monaco-editor | ghostty-web | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-07-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 173 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick monaco-editor if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ghostty-web if
- You want the ghostty-web feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and ghostty-web fits your workflow better
About monaco-editor
Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code, packaged as an npm library so that developers can embed the same editing experience inside their own browser based applications.
read the full monaco-editor overview →
About ghostty-web
ghostty web is an MIT licensed TypeScript library that brings Ghostty's WASM compiled VT100 terminal emulator to the browser behind an xterm.js compatible API, built for web developers who want a correct terminal in the page without abandoning their existing xterm.js integration.
read the full ghostty-web overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or ghostty-web more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars and ghostty-web has 2,852. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and ghostty-web free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and ghostty-web under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and ghostty-web?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and ghostty-web 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, monaco-editor or ghostty-web?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,766 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ghostty-web if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.