head to head · open source
Soketi vs Workbench
Soketi has 5,633 GitHub stars, 364 forks, 142 open issues and last shipped 1.7 years ago. Workbench has 454 stars, 47 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Soketi leads on adoption by 1,141% (5,633 vs 454 stars). Soketi is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Workbench is written in TypeScript under MIT. Soketi has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Workbench 10%. Workbench was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (nodejs), 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
| Soketi | Workbench | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.6K | ★ 454 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2025-03-03 | 2026-06-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 364 | ⑂ 47 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Soketi if
- You weight community size — 5.6K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Workbench if
- You want the Workbench feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Workbench fits your workflow better
About Soketi
soketi Next gen, Pusher compatible, open source WebSockets server. Simple, fast, and resilient. 📣 🤝 Supporting Soketi is meant to be open source, forever and ever. It solves issues that many developers face the one of wanting to be limitless while testing locally or performing benchmarks. More than that, itt is also suited for production usage, either it is public for your frontend applications or internal to your team. The frequency of releases and maintenance is based on the available time, which is tight as hell. Recently, there were issues with the maintenance and this caused infrequent updates, as well as…
read the full Soketi overview →
About Workbench
Workbench Open source BullMQ dashboard. Drop in for any Node or Bun backend. Workbench is a modern dashboard for BullMQ. Runs jobs, flows, schedulers and metrics, all served from your own backend behind your own auth. Zero infrastructure — mounts as a route in your existing app, or run as a standalone Docker container Adapters for Hono, Elysia, Express, Fastify, Koa, NestJS, AdonisJS, Next.js, TanStack Start, Astro, Nuxt, Bun.serve, and h3 Standalone image on GHCR ( ghcr.io/ /workbench standalone ) for Docker / Kubernetes deployments MCP server for Cursor, Claude Desktop, Zed, and Continue.dev — drive your…
read the full Workbench overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Soketi or Workbench more popular?
Soketi has 5,633 GitHub stars and Workbench has 454. Soketi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Soketi and Workbench free?
Both are open source. Soketi is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Workbench under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Soketi and Workbench?
Soketi is written in TypeScript and Workbench 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, Soketi or Workbench?
Choose Soketi if you want the larger community (5,633 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Workbench if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.