head to head · open source
so-novel vs anymd
so-novel has 8,247 GitHub stars, 733 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. anymd has 939 stars, 83 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. so-novel leads on adoption by 778% (8,247 vs 939 stars). so-novel is written in Java under AGPL-3.0; anymd is written in Rust under MIT. so-novel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, anymd 9%. anymd was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cli), 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
| so-novel | anymd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.2K | ★ 939 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-07-26 | 2026-09-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 733 | ⑂ 83 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick so-novel if
- You weight community size — 8.2K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick anymd if
- You want the anymd feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and anymd fits your workflow better
About so-novel
So Novel is an AGPL 3.0 Java tool that extracts structured content from web pages and exports it as standard ebook and document formats including EPUB, TXT, and PDF, built for people who want offline copies of web fiction and for anyone turning web content into readable documents.
read the full so-novel overview →
About anymd
anymd is an open source Rust MCP server and command line tool that converts PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoint decks, Excel workbooks, EPUB files, HTML and web pages, images, audio and video into clean Markdown for AI agents, running on the user's own machine with no API key.
read the full anymd overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Publishing projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Publishing field.
Frequently asked questions
Is so-novel or anymd more popular?
so-novel has 8,247 GitHub stars and anymd has 939. so-novel has the larger community by that measure.
Are so-novel and anymd free?
Both are open source. so-novel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and anymd under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between so-novel and anymd?
so-novel is written in Java and anymd in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, so-novel or anymd?
Choose so-novel if you want the larger community (8,247 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose anymd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.