head to head · open source
Rocket.Chat vs lumen
Rocket.Chat has 46,136 GitHub stars, 13,893 forks, 4,023 open issues and last shipped today. lumen has 1,152 stars, 119 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Rocket.Chat leads on adoption by 3,905% (46,136 vs 1,152 stars). Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; lumen is written in Rust under MIT. Rocket.Chat has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, lumen 10%. 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 (collaboration), 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 | lumen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 46K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 14K | ⑂ 119 |
| 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 lumen if
- You want the lumen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and lumen 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 lumen
Lumen A private Lumina server that can be used with IDA Pro 7.2+. lumen.abda.nl runs this server. You can read about the protocol research here. Features Stores function signatures so you (and your team) can quickly identify functions that you found in the past using IDA's built in Lumina features. Backed by PostgreSQL Experimental HTTP API that allows querying the database for comments by file or function hash. Getting Started Docker Method (Recommended) In this method precompiled docker images will be downloaded, All you need is docker compose.yml. 1. Install docker engine and docker compose . 2. If using a cus…
read the full lumen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Rocket.Chat or lumen more popular?
Rocket.Chat has 46,136 GitHub stars and lumen has 1,152. Rocket.Chat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Rocket.Chat and lumen free?
Both are open source. Rocket.Chat has no licence declared in this registry, and lumen is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Rocket.Chat and lumen?
Rocket.Chat is written in TypeScript and lumen in Rust. 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 lumen?
Choose Rocket.Chat if you want the larger community (46,136 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose lumen if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.