head to head · open source
uBlock vs zip.js
uBlock has 69,033 GitHub stars, 4,427 forks, 15 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zip.js has 3,905 stars, 546 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. uBlock leads on adoption by 1,668% (69,033 vs 3,905 stars). uBlock is written in JavaScript under GPL-3.0; zip.js is written in JavaScript under BSD-3-Clause. uBlock has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, zip.js 14%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| uBlock | zip.js | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 69K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.4K | ⑂ 546 |
| 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 zip.js if
- You want the zip.js feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and zip.js 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 zip.js
Introduction zip.js is a JavaScript open source library (BSD 3 Clause license) for compressing and decompressing zip files. It has been designed to handle large amounts of data. It supports notably multi core compression, native compression with compression streams, pluggable compression engines, archives larger than 4GB with Zip64, split zip files, data encryption, incremental writing, and Deflate64 decompression. Demo See Documentation See here for more info: Examples Hello world Run the code on JSFiddle: Hello world with the filesystem API The filesystem API stores the entries in a tree instead of a flat…
read the full zip.js overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Browsers & Extensions projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Browsers & Extensions field.
Frequently asked questions
Is uBlock or zip.js more popular?
uBlock has 69,033 GitHub stars and zip.js has 3,905. uBlock has the larger community by that measure.
Are uBlock and zip.js free?
Both are open source. uBlock is licensed under GPL-3.0 and zip.js under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between uBlock and zip.js?
uBlock is written in JavaScript and zip.js in JavaScript. 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 zip.js?
Choose uBlock if you want the larger community (69,033 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose zip.js if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.