head to head · open source
portainer vs wasm3
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wasm3 has 8,077 stars, 536 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. portainer leads on adoption by 380% (38,767 vs 8,077 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; wasm3 is written in C under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, wasm3 7%. portainer 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
| portainer | wasm3 | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 8.1K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 536 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick wasm3 if
- You want the wasm3 feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and wasm3 fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments. It is provided as is, at no cost, for the convenience of homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware. Portainer Business Edition builds on the same open source base and adds the features, hardening, and commercial support that production and enterprise environments require (RBAC, GitOps, edge management, audit, SSO, and more). Find out more about Portainer Business Edition features Take3 – get 3 free nodes of Portainer…
read the full portainer overview →
About wasm3
[!NOTE] I regret to inform the community that since my house was destroyed by russians who invaded my country, Wasm3 will enter a minimal maintenance phase . At this time, I am unable to continue the development of new features. However, I am committed to keeping the project alive and will actively review and merge incoming Pull Requests. I deeply appreciate your understanding and support during this difficult period. Your contributions to Wasm3 are now more valuable than ever. Wasm3 A fast WebAssembly interpreter and the most universal WASM runtime. See CoreMark 1.0 and independent benchmarks. Your mileage may…
read the full wasm3 overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or wasm3 more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and wasm3 has 8,077. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and wasm3 free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and wasm3 under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and wasm3?
portainer is written in TypeScript and wasm3 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, portainer or wasm3?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose wasm3 if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.