head to head · open source
serenity vs webtorrent
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars, 3,488 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. webtorrent has 31,465 stars, 2,852 forks, 83 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. serenity leads on adoption by 8% (33,938 vs 31,465 stars). serenity is written in C++ under BSD-2-Clause; webtorrent is written in JavaScript under MIT. serenity has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, webtorrent 9%. 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 | webtorrent | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 31K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.5K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| 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 webtorrent if
- You want the webtorrent feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and webtorrent fits your workflow better
About serenity
SerenityOS Graphical Unix like operating system for 64 bit x86, Arm, and RISC V computers. FAQ Documentation Build Instructions About SerenityOS is a love letter to '90s user interfaces with a custom Unix like core. It flatters with sincerity by stealing beautiful ideas from various other systems. Roughly speaking, the goal is a marriage between the aesthetic of late 1990s productivity software and the power user accessibility of late 2000s \ nix. This is a system by us, for us, based on the things we like. You can watch videos of the system being developed on YouTube: Andreas Kling's channel Linus Groh's…
read the full serenity overview →
About webtorrent
WebTorrent The streaming torrent client. For node.js and the web. Sponsored by WebTorrent is a streaming torrent client for node.js and the browser . YEP, THAT'S RIGHT. THE BROWSER. It's written completely in JavaScript – the language of the web – so the same code works in both runtimes. In node.js, this module is a simple torrent client, using TCP and UDP to talk to other torrent clients. In the browser, WebTorrent uses WebRTC (data channels) for peer to peer transport. It can be used without browser plugins, extensions, or installations. It's Just JavaScript™. Note: WebTorrent does not support UDP/TCP peers in…
read the full webtorrent overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or webtorrent more popular?
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars and webtorrent has 31,465. serenity has the larger community by that measure.
Are serenity and webtorrent free?
Both are open source. serenity is licensed under BSD-2-Clause and webtorrent under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serenity and webtorrent?
serenity is written in C++ and webtorrent 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 webtorrent?
Choose serenity if you want the larger community (33,938 stars) or its BSD-2-Clause licence terms. Choose webtorrent if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.