head to head · open source
vscodium vs metals
vscodium has 33,548 GitHub stars, 1,881 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. metals has 2,333 stars, 445 forks, 282 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vscodium leads on adoption by 1,338% (33,548 vs 2,333 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; metals is written in Scala under Apache-2.0. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, metals 19%. metals was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (ide), 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
| vscodium | metals | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 2.3K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Scala |
| Last push | 2026-10-07 | 2026-10-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 445 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vscodium if
- You weight community size — 34K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick metals if
- You want the metals feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Scala
- You evaluated both and metals fits your workflow better
About vscodium
VSCodium is a repository of scripts that automatically build Microsoft's vscode repository into freely licensed binaries with a community driven default configuration, made for developers who want the Visual Studio Code editing experience without Microsoft branding, telemetry, or licensing encumbrance.
read the full vscodium overview →
About metals
Metals is a Scala language server that brings rich IDE features to editors supporting the Language Server Protocol, aimed at Scala developers who want full tooling outside of IntelliJ IDEA.
read the full metals overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or metals more popular?
vscodium has 33,548 GitHub stars and metals has 2,333. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and metals free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and metals under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and metals?
vscodium is written in Shell and metals in Scala. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vscodium or metals?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,548 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose metals if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.