head to head · open source
streama vs smolrtsp
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars, 978 forks, 352 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. smolrtsp has 508 stars, 118 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. streama leads on adoption by 1,833% (9,820 vs 508 stars). streama is written in JavaScript under MIT; smolrtsp is written in C under MIT. streama has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, smolrtsp 23%. smolrtsp 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| streama | smolrtsp | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.8K | ★ 508 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-08-09 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 978 | ⑂ 118 |
| 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 smolrtsp if
- You want the smolrtsp feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and smolrtsp 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 smolrtsp
SmolRTSP is a small MIT licensed C library that implements an RTSP 1.0 server for embedded devices such as IP cameras, aimed at firmware and camera platform developers who need to serve live video and audio from constrained hardware.
read the full smolrtsp overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Digital Asset Management (DAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Digital Asset Management (DAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is streama or smolrtsp more popular?
streama has 9,820 GitHub stars and smolrtsp has 508. streama has the larger community by that measure.
Are streama and smolrtsp free?
Both are open source. streama is licensed under MIT and smolrtsp under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between streama and smolrtsp?
streama is written in JavaScript and smolrtsp 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, streama or smolrtsp?
Choose streama if you want the larger community (9,820 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose smolrtsp if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.