head to head · open source
monaco-editor vs zip.js
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars, 4,131 forks, 859 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. zip.js has 3,894 stars, 547 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. monaco-editor leads on adoption by 1,101% (46,766 vs 3,894 stars). monaco-editor is written in JavaScript under MIT; zip.js is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. monaco-editor has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, zip.js 14%. zip.js 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 | zip.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.1K | ⑂ 547 |
| 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 zip.js if
- You want the zip.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and zip.js 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 zip.js
zip.js is a BSD 3 Clause JavaScript library for compressing and decompressing zip files in browsers, Node.js, Deno and service workers, built for developers who need to read and write large archives in JavaScript without a native binary or a server round trip.
read the full zip.js overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is monaco-editor or zip.js more popular?
monaco-editor has 46,766 GitHub stars and zip.js has 3,894. monaco-editor has the larger community by that measure.
Are monaco-editor and zip.js free?
Both are open source. monaco-editor is licensed under MIT and zip.js under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between monaco-editor and zip.js?
monaco-editor is written in JavaScript and zip.js 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, monaco-editor or zip.js?
Choose monaco-editor if you want the larger community (46,766 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zip.js if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.