head to head · open source
serenity vs SingleFile
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars, 3,488 forks, 739 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SingleFile has 22,811 stars, 1,432 forks, 101 open issues and last shipped yesterday. serenity leads on adoption by 49% (33,938 vs 22,811 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%. SingleFile 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 | ★ 23K |
| License | BSD-2-Clause | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | C++ | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| 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 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 SingleFile
SingleFile SingleFile helps you to save a complete web page into a single HTML file. SingleFile is a Web Extension (and a CLI tool) compatible with Chrome, Firefox (Desktop and Mobile), Microsoft Edge, Safari, Vivaldi, Brave, Waterfox, Yandex browser, and Opera. Table of Contents SingleFile Table of Contents Demo Install Getting started Additional notes FAQ Release notes Known Issues and Troubleshooting Command Line Interface (SingleFile CLI) Integration with user scripts File format comparison Projects using/compatible with SingleFile Privacy Policy Contributors Code derived from third party projects Icons…
read the full SingleFile overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serenity or SingleFile more popular?
serenity has 33,938 GitHub stars and SingleFile has 22,811. 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 (33,938 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.