head to head · open source
serenity vs SingleFile
serenity has 33,840 GitHub stars, 3,541 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SingleFile has 22,411 stars, 1,410 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity leads on adoption by 51% (33,840 vs 22,411 stars). serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; SingleFile is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. serenity has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, SingleFile 6%. serenity was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (browser), 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
| serenity | SingleFile | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 22K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serenity if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick SingleFile if
- You want the SingleFile feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and SingleFile fits your workflow better
About serenity
SerenityOS is a graphical Unix like operating system built for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. It is written in C++ and released under the BSD 2 Clause license, and it lives in the open source operating system ecosystem alongside other hobbyist and research kernels. The project describes itself as a love letter to 1990s user interfaces paired with a custom Unix like core, aiming for a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s Unix systems.
read the full serenity overview →
About SingleFile
SingleFile is a web extension, and also a command line tool, that saves a complete web page into a single HTML file. It is written in JavaScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license, and it lives in the browser extension ecosystem, with builds published for Chrome, Firefox (desktop and mobile), Microsoft Edge, Safari, Vivaldi, Brave, Waterfox, Yandex browser, and Opera. The project has been developed for roughly sixteen years and is distributed through the extension stores of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge, as well as through manual installation from the project archive.
read the full SingleFile overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or SingleFile more popular?
serenity has 33,840 GitHub stars and SingleFile has 22,411. serenity has the larger community by that measure.
Are serenity and SingleFile free?
Both are open source. serenity is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and SingleFile under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serenity and SingleFile?
serenity is written in C++ and SingleFile 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, serenity or SingleFile?
Choose serenity if you want the larger community (33,840 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose SingleFile if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.