head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs thorium
monaco-editor has 46,758 GitHub stars, 4,128 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. thorium has 7,508 stars, 283 forks, 140 open issues and last shipped 26 days ago. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 523% (46,758 vs 7,508 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; thorium is written in C++ under BSD-3-Clause. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, thorium 4%. monaco-editor 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
| monaco-editor | thorium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-08-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 283 |
| 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 thorium if
- You want the thorium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and thorium 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 thorium
Thorium is a BSD 3 Clause licensed Chromium fork, written in C++ and named after radioactive element No. 90, that ships optimised Linux builds here while Windows, macOS, Android and Raspberry Pi builds live in companion repositories.
read the full thorium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or thorium more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,758 GitHub stars and thorium has 7,508. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and thorium free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and thorium under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and thorium?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and thorium in C++. 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 thorium?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,758 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose thorium if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.