head to head · open source
Stoat vs Wire
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars, 388 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped today. Wire has 2,549 stars, 180 forks, 173 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Stoat leads on adoption by 31% (3,336 vs 2,549 stars). Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; Wire is written in various languages under GPL-3.0. Stoat has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Wire 7%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Stoat | Wire | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.3K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-01-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 388 | ⑂ 180 |
| 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 Wire if
- You want the Wire feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and Wire 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 Wire
Wire is an open source secure collaboration platform whose GitHub overview repository gathers code for clients, encryption, audio/video/signaling, server components, and protocol definitions. It lives in the security and privacy ecosystem, specifically data security and privacy.
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Data Security & Privacy projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Security & Privacy field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Stoat or Wire more popular?
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars and Wire has 2,549. Stoat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Stoat and Wire free?
Both are open source. Stoat has no licence declared in this registry, and Wire is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Stoat and Wire?
Stoat is written in Rust and Wire in various languages. 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 Wire?
Choose Stoat if you want the larger community (3,336 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Wire if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.