head to head · open source
Fathom Lite vs shynet
Fathom Lite has 8,020 GitHub stars, 383 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. shynet has 3,156 stars, 208 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Fathom Lite leads on adoption by 154% (8,020 vs 3,156 stars). Fathom Lite is written in Go under MIT; shynet is written in Python under Apache-2.0. Fathom Lite has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, shynet 7%. Fathom Lite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (analytics, privacy), 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
| Fathom Lite | shynet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.0K | ★ 3.2K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-03-18 | 2026-03-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 383 | ⑂ 208 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Fathom Lite if
- You weight community size — 8.0K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick shynet if
- You want the shynet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and shynet fits your workflow better
About Fathom Lite
Fathom Lite is the original open source, self hosted edition of Fathom Analytics — a simple, privacy focused website analytics tool written in Go with a Preact dashboard, released under the MIT licence for people who want to run their own analytics server rather than buy a hosted service.
read the full Fathom Lite overview →
About shynet
Shynet is an open source web analytics application written in Python and built with Django. It lives in the self hosted web and product analytics ecosystem, where operators collect visit data on their own infrastructure instead of sending it to a third party service. The project is released under the Apache 2.0 license and aims to provide detailed analytics without cookies or required JavaScript.
read the full shynet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Fathom Lite or shynet more popular?
Fathom Lite has 8,020 GitHub stars and shynet has 3,156. Fathom Lite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Fathom Lite and shynet free?
Both are open source. Fathom Lite is licensed under MIT and shynet under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Fathom Lite and shynet?
Fathom Lite is written in Go and shynet in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Fathom Lite or shynet?
Choose Fathom Lite if you want the larger community (8,020 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose shynet if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.