head to head · open source
tubearchivist vs xiu
tubearchivist has 8,451 GitHub stars, 420 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 21 days ago. xiu has 2,331 stars, 239 forks, 41 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. tubearchivist leads on adoption by 263% (8,451 vs 2,331 stars). tubearchivist is written in Python under GPL-3.0; xiu is written in Rust under MIT. tubearchivist has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, xiu 10%. tubearchivist 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
| tubearchivist | xiu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.5K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-08-28 | 2026-03-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 420 | ⑂ 239 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick tubearchivist if
- You weight community size — 8.5K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick xiu if
- You want the xiu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and xiu fits your workflow better
About tubearchivist
Tube Archivist is a self hosted YouTube media server that downloads videos with yt dlp, indexes them with metadata from YouTube, and serves them back through a searchable web interface, built for people whose personal YouTube archive has grown past the point where folders and filenames still work.
read the full tubearchivist overview →
About xiu
Xiu is an open source live media server written in pure Rust under the MIT license. It supports RTMP, RTSP, WebRTC through Whip and Whep, HTTP FLV, and HLS, and it runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It belongs to the Rust media server ecosystem and targets live audio and video distribution.
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Frequently asked questions
Is tubearchivist or xiu more popular?
tubearchivist has 8,451 GitHub stars and xiu has 2,331. tubearchivist has the larger community by that measure.
Are tubearchivist and xiu free?
Both are open source. tubearchivist is licensed under GPL-3.0 and xiu under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between tubearchivist and xiu?
tubearchivist is written in Python and xiu 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, tubearchivist or xiu?
Choose tubearchivist if you want the larger community (8,451 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose xiu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.