head to head · open source
uBlock vs turndown
uBlock has 69,033 GitHub stars, 4,427 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. turndown has 11,501 stars, 999 forks, 144 open issues and last shipped 16 days ago. uBlock leads on adoption by 500% (69,033 vs 11,501 stars). uBlock is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; turndown is written in HTML under MIT. uBlock has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, turndown 9%. uBlock was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (javascript), 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
| uBlock | turndown | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 69K | ★ 12K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 999 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick uBlock if
- You weight community size — 69K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick turndown if
- You want the turndown feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and turndown fits your workflow better
About uBlock
[![Badge Commits]][Commit Rate] [![Badge Issues]][Issues] [![Badge Localization]][Crowdin] [![Badge License]][License] [![Badge NPM]][NPM] [![Badge Mozilla]][Mozilla] ![Badge Chrome] [![Badge Edge]][Edge] uBlock Origin (uBO) GitHub Releases Stable and development versions on Firefox, Chromium MV2, and Thunderbird. Must be placed manually into web browsers; the Chromium and Thunderbird versions usually won't auto update. Related: uBlock Origin Lite uBlock Origin (uBO) is a CPU and memory efficient [wide spectrum content blocker][Blocking] for Chromium and Firefox. It blocks ads, trackers, coin miners, popups…
read the full uBlock overview →
About turndown
Turndown Convert HTML into Markdown with JavaScript. See it in action online. Project Updates to markdown has been renamed to Turndown. See the migration guide for details. Turndown repository has changed its URL to Installation npm: Browser: For usage with RequireJS, UMD versions are located in lib/turndown.umd.js (for Node.js) and lib/turndown.browser.umd.js for browser usage. These files are generated when the npm package is published. To generate them manually, clone this repo and run npm run build . Usage Turndown also accepts DOM nodes as input (either element nodes, document nodes, or document fragment…
read the full turndown overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is uBlock or turndown more popular?
uBlock has 69,033 GitHub stars and turndown has 11,501. uBlock has the larger community by that measure.
Are uBlock and turndown free?
Both are open source. uBlock is licensed under GPL-3.0 and turndown under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between uBlock and turndown?
uBlock is written in JavaScript and turndown in HTML. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, uBlock or turndown?
Choose uBlock if you want the larger community (69,033 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose turndown if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.