head to head · open source
rea vs useful-forks.github.io
rea has 114,156 GitHub stars, 25,579 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped today. useful-forks.github.io has 1,339 stars, 85 forks, 20 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. rea leads on adoption by 8,425% (114,156 vs 1,339 stars). rea is written in TypeScript under MIT; useful-forks.github.io is written in JavaScript under MIT. rea has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, useful-forks.github.io 6%. rea 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
| rea | useful-forks.github.io | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 114K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-12 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 26K | ⑂ 85 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick rea if
- You weight community size — 114K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick useful-forks.github.io if
- You want the useful-forks.github.io feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and useful-forks.github.io fits your workflow better
About rea
REA is an open source MCP server and CLI that lets AI coding agents — and your terminal — reverse engineer native binaries, JavaScript and Electron apps, .NET assemblies, and websites, with evidence attached to every conclusion.
About useful-forks.github.io
Useful Forks is a free, MIT licensed JavaScript tool for anyone browsing GitHub who wants to find forks of a repository that actually contain new work instead of scrolling through hundreds of untouched copies.
read the full useful-forks.github.io overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is rea or useful-forks.github.io more popular?
rea has 114,156 GitHub stars and useful-forks.github.io has 1,339. rea has the larger community by that measure.
Are rea and useful-forks.github.io free?
Both are open source. rea is licensed under MIT and useful-forks.github.io under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between rea and useful-forks.github.io?
rea is written in TypeScript and useful-forks.github.io 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, rea or useful-forks.github.io?
Choose rea if you want the larger community (114,156 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose useful-forks.github.io if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.