head to head · open source
streama vs lap
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars, 978 forks, 352 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. lap has 2,440 stars, 150 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped yesterday. streama leads on adoption by 302% (9,820 vs 2,440 stars). streama is written in JavaScript under MIT; lap is written in Vue under GPL-3.0. streama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, lap 6%. lap 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
| streama | lap | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.8K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Vue |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 978 | ⑂ 150 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick streama if
- You weight community size — 9.8K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lap if
- You want the lap feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You evaluated both and lap fits your workflow better
About streama
Streama is a self hosted streaming media server, written in JavaScript and released under the MIT licence, that gives someone with a large personal collection of films and shows a private Netflix style library they run and control themselves.
read the full streama overview →
About lap
Lap is an open source, GPL 3.0 desktop photo manager for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It is built around a local first model, so users browse family albums, find old photos, and manage large personal media libraries without a required cloud account or upload. The concrete problem is the tension between convenience and privacy in photo organization. Many services rely on cloud storage, accounts, and proprietary libraries, while many users keep photos and videos in ordinary folders on their own disks. Lap solves this by working directly with existing folders, keeping files in place, and offering local search, similar…
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Frequently asked questions
Is streama or lap more popular?
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars and lap has 2,440. streama has the larger community by that measure.
Are streama and lap free?
Both are open source. streama is licensed under MIT and lap under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between streama and lap?
streama is written in JavaScript and lap in Vue. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, streama or lap?
Choose streama if you want the larger community (9,820 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lap if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.