head to head · open source
slate vs feathers
slate has 31,747 GitHub stars, 3,306 forks, 653 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. feathers has 15,256 stars, 802 forks, 121 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. slate leads on adoption by 108% (31,747 vs 15,256 stars). slate is written in TypeScript under MIT; feathers is written in TypeScript under MIT. slate has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, feathers 5%. feathers was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (browser, framework, javascript), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| slate | feathers | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 802 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick slate if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick feathers if
- You want the feathers feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and feathers fits your workflow better
About slate
A completely customizable framework for building rich text editors. Why? · Principles · Demo · Examples · Documentation · Contributing! Slate lets you build rich, intuitive editors like those in Medium, Dropbox Paper or Google Docs—which are becoming table stakes for applications on the web—without your codebase getting mired in complexity. It can do this because all of its logic is implemented with a series of plugins, so you aren't ever constrained by what is or isn't in "core". You can think of it like a pluggable implementation of contenteditable built on top of React. It was inspired by libraries like…
read the full slate overview →
About feathers
Feathers is a full stack framework for creating web APIs and real time applications with TypeScript or JavaScript. Feathers can interact with any backend technology, supports many databases out of the box and works with any frontend like React, VueJS, Angular, React Native, Android or iOS. Getting started Get started with just three commands: To learn more about Feathers visit the website at feathersjs.com or jump right into the Feathers guides. Contributing To start developing, clone this repository, then run: To run all tests run Individual tests can be run in the module you are working on: License Copyright…
read the full feathers overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Browsers & Extensions projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Browsers & Extensions field.
Frequently asked questions
Is slate or feathers more popular?
slate has 31,747 GitHub stars and feathers has 15,256. slate has the larger community by that measure.
Are slate and feathers free?
Both are open source. slate is licensed under MIT and feathers under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between slate and feathers?
slate is written in TypeScript and feathers in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, slate or feathers?
Choose slate if you want the larger community (31,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose feathers if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.