head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs opal
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars, 4,131 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. opal has 4,926 stars, 336 forks, 152 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 849% (46,766 vs 4,926 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; opal is written in Ruby under MIT. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, opal 7%. 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 | opal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 336 |
| 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 opal if
- You want the opal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and opal 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 opal
Opal is an MIT licensed Ruby to JavaScript source to source compiler, distributed as a Ruby gem, that lets developers write Ruby and run the resulting JavaScript in the browser, Node.js, Deno, Bun, or QuickJS.
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or opal more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars and opal has 4,926. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and opal free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and opal under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and opal?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and opal in Ruby. 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 opal?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,766 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose opal if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.