head to head · open source
Rocket.Chat vs galene
Rocket.Chat has 46,133 GitHub stars, 13,891 forks, 4,023 open issues and last shipped yesterday. galene has 1,404 stars, 195 forks, 59 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. Rocket.Chat leads on adoption by 3,186% (46,133 vs 1,404 stars). Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; galene is written in Go under MIT. Rocket.Chat has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, galene 14%. Rocket.Chat was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (webrtc), 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
| Rocket.Chat | galene | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 14K | ⑂ 195 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Rocket.Chat if
- You weight community size — 46K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick galene if
- You want the galene feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and galene fits your workflow better
About Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is an open source, self hostable team communications platform written in TypeScript that gives organisations full ownership of their messaging, voice, and federation infrastructure instead of renting it from a closed SaaS vendor.
read the full Rocket.Chat overview →
About galene
Galene is a videoconference server. It lives in the Go, WebRTC, SFU, video conferencing, file sharing, and webapp ecosystem. It is listed as Business Software / Collaboration & Communication. It is described as a fully featured, easy to deploy videoconferencing system requiring very moderate server resources. It gives browser users named groups, operator permissions, and file sharing. It solves the problem of running video meetings without a heavy hosted stack. It also supports extension, because the README points to client, protocol, and administrative API documents.
read the full galene overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Rocket.Chat or galene more popular?
Rocket.Chat has 46,133 GitHub stars and galene has 1,404. Rocket.Chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Rocket.Chat and galene free?
Both are open source. Rocket.Chat has no licence declared in this registry, and galene is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Rocket.Chat and galene?
Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript and galene in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Rocket.Chat or galene?
Choose Rocket.Chat if you want the larger community (46,133 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose galene if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.