head to head · open source
SingleFile vs buster
SingleFile has 22,411 GitHub stars, 1,410 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped yesterday. buster has 9,302 stars, 694 forks, 50 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. SingleFile leads on adoption by 141% (22,411 vs 9,302 stars). SingleFile is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0; buster is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0. SingleFile has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, buster 7%. SingleFile was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (chrome-extension), 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
| SingleFile | buster | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 22K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-06-27 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 694 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SingleFile if
- You weight community size — 22K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick buster if
- You want the buster feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and buster fits your workflow better
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 →
About buster
Buster is a free, open source browser extension for Chrome, Edge and Firefox that helps people solve difficult CAPTCHA challenges by completing reCAPTCHA audio challenges with speech recognition, and it is intended for ordinary human users rather than automation operators.
read the full buster overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SingleFile or buster more popular?
SingleFile has 22,411 GitHub stars and buster has 9,302. SingleFile has the larger community by that measure.
Are SingleFile and buster free?
Both are open source. SingleFile is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and buster under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SingleFile and buster?
SingleFile is written in JavaScript and buster 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, SingleFile or buster?
Choose SingleFile if you want the larger community (22,411 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose buster if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.