head to head · open source
so-novel vs anymd
so-novel has 8,984 GitHub stars, 759 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. anymd has 1,069 stars, 93 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. so-novel leads on adoption by 740% (8,984 vs 1,069 stars). so-novel is written in Java under AGPL-3.0; anymd is written in Rust under MIT. so-novel has attracted 8% 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.
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Side by side
| so-novel | anymd | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-26 | 2026-11-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 759 | ⑂ 93 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick so-novel if
- You weight community size — 9.0K 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 概述 So Novel 是一款通用的网页内容处理与导出工具，它致力于帮助用户高效地从网页中提取结构化信息，并将其灵活导出为 EPUB、TXT、PDF 等多种标准电子文档格式。适用于学习采集、格式转换、电子书制作等场景。 预览 点击查看图片 TUI 预览 (Text based User Interface) WebUI 预览 (网页版) CLI 预览 (Command Line Interface) 安装 📦 手动下载压缩包 🪟 Windows 1. PowerShell 2. CMD (命令提示符) 🐧 Linux cmd REM REM 高级用户使用自定义 JRE 启动程序 REM 将 "your path\java.exe" 替换为你的 JRE 路径，例如： REM "C:\Java\jdk 21\bin\java.exe" REM @echo off your path\java.exe ^ XX:+UseZGC ^ XX:+ZGenerational ^ Dconfig.file=config.ini ^ Dmode=tui ^ Dfile.encoding=GBK Big5 ^ jar app.jar Linux / macOS：run linux.sh / run macos.sh 修改 java 路径 常见问题 讨论 支持 & 赞助
read the full so-novel overview →
About anymd
anymd PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, EPUB, HTML and web pages, images (OCR), audio and video (metadata, subtitles, transcripts). A fast Rust MCP server and CLI that runs on your machine. No API key. Install · Benchmarks · Tools · CLI · Formats · Docs Formerly pdf reader mcp . Migrating from pdf reader mcp A real, unedited terminal recording (asciinema + agg, script ). The last command is Claude Code answering from the PDF through the anymd MCP server. Why anymd Fast. Native Rust converts in parallel, page by page. On the 19 benchmark documents every tool converted, anymd takes 12.1 s in total; docling 1,723.3 s…
read the full anymd overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is so-novel or anymd more popular?
so-novel has 8,984 GitHub stars and anymd has 1,069. 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 (8,984 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose anymd if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.