head to head · open source
Zen vs Stoat
Zen has 4,347 GitHub stars, 145 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Stoat has 3,442 stars, 409 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Zen leads on adoption by 26% (4,347 vs 3,442 stars). Zen is written in Go under MIT; Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. Zen has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Stoat 12%. Zen 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
| Zen | Stoat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.3K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 145 | ⑂ 409 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zen if
- You weight community size — 4.3K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Stoat if
- You want the Stoat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Stoat fits your workflow better
About Zen
Zen: Your Comprehensive Ad Blocker and Privacy Guard There is, simply, no way, to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are interdependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s. Edward Snowden, Permanent Record Website • Mastodon • Bluesky • Discord • Documentation Zen is an open source system wide ad blocker and privacy guard for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It works by setting up a proxy that intercepts HTTP requests from all applications, and blocks those serving ads, tracking scripts that monitor your behavior, malware, and other unwanted content. By operating at the system…
About Stoat
Stoat Backend The services and libraries that power the Stoat service.
read the full Stoat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen or Stoat more popular?
Zen has 4,347 GitHub stars and Stoat has 3,442. Zen has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen and Stoat free?
Both are open source. Zen is licensed under MIT, and Stoat has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zen and Stoat?
Zen is written in Go and Stoat 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, Zen or Stoat?
Choose Zen if you want the larger community (4,347 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Stoat if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.