head to head · open source
Stoat vs Tongsuo
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars, 388 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped today. Tongsuo has 1,535 stars, 260 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Stoat leads on adoption by 117% (3,336 vs 1,535 stars). Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; Tongsuo is written in C under Apache-2.0. Stoat has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Tongsuo 17%. Stoat 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
| Stoat | Tongsuo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.3K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 388 | ⑂ 260 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Stoat if
- You weight community size — 3.3K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Tongsuo if
- You want the Tongsuo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Tongsuo fits your workflow better
About Stoat
Stoat is a Rust backend project that provides the services and libraries powering the Stoat group chat service. The repository is organized around core crates for configuration, database implementation, files, API models, permissions, presence, result types, and a coalesced crate.
read the full Stoat overview →
About Tongsuo
Tongsuo (铜锁) is an open source C library of modern cryptographic primitives and secure communication protocols, developed under the OpenAtom Foundation, and it is built for teams that need Chinese commercial cryptography, TLS, PKI, and privacy preserving primitives from a single dependency.
read the full Tongsuo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Stoat or Tongsuo more popular?
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars and Tongsuo has 1,535. Stoat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Stoat and Tongsuo free?
Both are open source. Stoat has no licence declared in this registry, and Tongsuo is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Stoat and Tongsuo?
Stoat is written in Rust and Tongsuo 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, Stoat or Tongsuo?
Choose Stoat if you want the larger community (3,336 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Tongsuo if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.