head to head · open source
so-novel vs Lingo.dev
so-novel has 8,157 GitHub stars, 726 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Lingo.dev has 5,404 stars, 811 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. so-novel leads on adoption by 51% (8,157 vs 5,404 stars). so-novel is written in Java under AGPL-3.0; Lingo.dev is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. so-novel has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Lingo.dev 15%. Lingo.dev was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Lingo.dev | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.2K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-07-26 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 726 | ⑂ 811 |
| 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 Lingo.dev if
- You want the Lingo.dev feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Lingo.dev 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 Lingo.dev
Lingo.dev is an open source suite of localization engineering tools that connects codebases and commits to translation APIs, built for developers and teams maintaining multilingual JavaScript, React, React Native, and TypeScript applications.
read the full Lingo.dev overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is so-novel or Lingo.dev more popular?
so-novel has 8,157 GitHub stars and Lingo.dev has 5,404. so-novel has the larger community by that measure.
Are so-novel and Lingo.dev free?
Both are open source. so-novel is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Lingo.dev under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between so-novel and Lingo.dev?
so-novel is written in Java and Lingo.dev 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, so-novel or Lingo.dev?
Choose so-novel if you want the larger community (8,157 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Lingo.dev if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.