head to head · open source
vscodium vs xum
vscodium has 33,649 GitHub stars, 1,890 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped yesterday. xum has 2,054 stars, 142 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped today. vscodium leads on adoption by 1,538% (33,649 vs 2,054 stars). vscodium is written in Shell under MIT; xum is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. vscodium has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, xum 7%. xum 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| vscodium | xum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 34K | ★ 2.1K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 142 |
| 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 xum if
- You want the xum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and xum 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 xum
Xum is a desktop application and coding agent multiplexer for developers who want to run many AI coding agents in parallel across isolated workspaces, with runtimes that span a local project directory, git worktrees on the same machine, and remote execution over SSH.
More in Developer Tools
Related comparisons
More IDEs & Code Editors projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the IDEs & Code Editors field.
Frequently asked questions
Is vscodium or xum more popular?
vscodium has 33,649 GitHub stars and xum has 2,054. vscodium has the larger community by that measure.
Are vscodium and xum free?
Both are open source. vscodium is licensed under MIT and xum under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vscodium and xum?
vscodium is written in Shell and xum in TypeScript. 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 xum?
Choose vscodium if you want the larger community (33,649 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose xum if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.