head to head · open source
slate vs Helium
slate has 31,747 GitHub stars, 3,306 forks, 653 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Helium has 22,283 stars, 680 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. slate leads on adoption by 42% (31,747 vs 22,283 stars). slate is written in TypeScript under MIT; Helium is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. slate has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Helium 3%. Helium 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
| slate | Helium | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 22K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 680 |
| 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 Helium if
- You want the Helium feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and Helium 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 Helium
Helium The Chromium based web browser made for people, with love. Privacy first with unbiased ad blocking. No bloat and no noise. helium.computer Downloads [!NOTE] Helium is currently in beta, so unexpected issues may occur. Please report them if they haven't already been reported. The easiest way to download Helium is helium.computer. It'll pick a compatible binary for your platform automatically. The same releases can also be downloaded from source on GitHub: Latest macOS release Latest Linux release Latest Windows release Helium repos All Helium packaging, tooling, services, and components are open source and…
read the full Helium overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is slate or Helium more popular?
slate has 31,747 GitHub stars and Helium has 22,283. slate has the larger community by that measure.
Are slate and Helium free?
Both are open source. slate is licensed under MIT and Helium under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between slate and Helium?
slate is written in TypeScript and Helium in C++. 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 Helium?
Choose slate if you want the larger community (31,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Helium if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.