head to head · open source
owncast vs praw
owncast has 11,644 GitHub stars, 1,195 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. praw has 4,292 stars, 504 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. owncast leads on adoption by 171% (11,644 vs 4,292 stars). owncast is written in Go under MIT; praw is written in Python under BSD-2-Clause. owncast has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, praw 12%. praw 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
| owncast | praw | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 12K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | MIT | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-26 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 504 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick owncast if
- You weight community size — 12K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick praw if
- You want the praw feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and praw fits your workflow better
About owncast
Take control over your content and stream it yourself. Explore the docs » View Demo · FAQ · Report Bug · Report Security Issue Table of Contents 📒 About the Project 🚀 Getting Started 👨💻 Use with your broadcasting software 🛠 Building from source 🚨 Important note about source code and the develop branch 🗄️ Backend ⚛️ Frontend 👏 Contributing 💵 Donors Security 📝 License Contact About The Project Owncast is an open source, self hosted, decentralized, single user live video streaming and chat server for running your own live streams similar in style to the large mainstream options. It offers complete…
read the full owncast overview →
About praw
PRAW: The Python Reddit API Wrapper .. image:: :alt: Latest PRAW Version :target: .. image:: :alt: Supported Python Versions :target: .. image:: :alt: PyPI Downloads Monthly :target: .. image:: :alt: GitHub Actions Status :target: .. image:: :alt: OpenSSF Scorecard :target: .. image:: :alt: Contributor Covenant :target: .. image:: :alt: pre commit :target: .. image:: :alt: Ruff :target: PRAW, an acronym for "Python Reddit API Wrapper", is a Python package that allows for simple access to Reddit's API. PRAW aims to be easy to use and internally follows all of Reddit's API rules . With PRAW there's no need to…
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Frequently asked questions
Is owncast or praw more popular?
owncast has 11,644 GitHub stars and praw has 4,292. owncast has the larger community by that measure.
Are owncast and praw free?
Both are open source. owncast is licensed under MIT and praw under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between owncast and praw?
owncast is written in Go and praw in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, owncast or praw?
Choose owncast if you want the larger community (11,644 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose praw if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.