head to head · open source
streama vs Pulsarr
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars, 978 forks, 352 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Pulsarr has 744 stars, 14 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. streama leads on adoption by 1,220% (9,820 vs 744 stars). streama is written in JavaScript under MIT; Pulsarr is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. streama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Pulsarr 2%. Pulsarr was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (media-server), 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
| streama | Pulsarr | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.8K | ★ 744 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 978 | ⑂ 14 |
| 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 Pulsarr if
- You want the Pulsarr feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Pulsarr 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 Pulsarr
Pulsarr is TypeScript, AGPL 3.0 project for Plex watchlist monitoring and content acquisition. It bridges Plex watchlists with Sonarr and Radarr, so Plex items become media library requests without extra logins. It runs in self hosted media server ecosystem, with web interface at port 3003. Docs site covers quick start, native installation, configuration, Discord setup, features, API. Docs are at jamcalli.github.io/Pulsarr.
read the full Pulsarr overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is streama or Pulsarr more popular?
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars and Pulsarr has 744. streama has the larger community by that measure.
Are streama and Pulsarr free?
Both are open source. streama is licensed under MIT and Pulsarr under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between streama and Pulsarr?
streama is written in JavaScript and Pulsarr 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, streama or Pulsarr?
Choose streama if you want the larger community (9,820 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Pulsarr if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.