head to head · open source
Uptime Kuma vs OpenVPN
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars, 8,655 forks, 805 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenVPN has 14,763 stars, 3,424 forks, 226 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Uptime Kuma leads on adoption by 531% (93,190 vs 14,763 stars). Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript under MIT; OpenVPN is written in C under a custom or non-standard licence. Uptime Kuma has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, OpenVPN 23%. OpenVPN was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Uptime Kuma | OpenVPN | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 93K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | JavaScript | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.7K | ⑂ 3.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Uptime Kuma if
- You weight community size — 93K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenVPN if
- You want the OpenVPN feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and OpenVPN fits your workflow better
About Uptime Kuma
Uptime Kuma Uptime Kuma is an easy to use self hosted monitoring tool. 🥔 Live Demo Try it! Demo Server (Location: Frankfurt Germany): It is a temporary live demo, all data will be deleted after 10 minutes. Sponsored by Uptime Kuma Sponsors. ⭐ Features Monitoring uptime for HTTP(s) / TCP / HTTP(s) Keyword / HTTP(s) Json Query / Websocket / Ping / DNS Record / Push / Steam Game Server / Docker Containers Fancy, Reactive, Fast UI/UX Notifications via Telegram, Discord, Gotify, Slack, Pushover, Email (SMTP), and 90+ notification services, click here for the full list 20 second intervals Multi Languages Multiple…
read the full Uptime Kuma overview →
About OpenVPN
OpenVPN A Secure tunneling daemon Copyright (C) 2002 2026 OpenVPN Inc. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation. To get the latest release of OpenVPN, go to: To Build and Install, tar zxf openvpn .tar.gz cd openvpn ./configure make make install or see the file INSTALL for more info. For information on how to build OpenVPN on/for Windows with MinGW or MSVC see README.cmake.md. For detailed information on OpenVPN, including examples, see the man page For a sample VPN…
read the full OpenVPN overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Uptime Kuma or OpenVPN more popular?
Uptime Kuma has 93,190 GitHub stars and OpenVPN has 14,763. Uptime Kuma has the larger community by that measure.
Are Uptime Kuma and OpenVPN free?
Both are open source. Uptime Kuma is licensed under MIT, and OpenVPN has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Uptime Kuma and OpenVPN?
Uptime Kuma is written in JavaScript and OpenVPN 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, Uptime Kuma or OpenVPN?
Choose Uptime Kuma if you want the larger community (93,190 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenVPN if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.