head to head · open source
Wallabag vs Showly
Wallabag has 12,969 GitHub stars, 896 forks, 764 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Showly has 1,460 stars, 99 forks, 151 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Wallabag leads on adoption by 788% (12,969 vs 1,460 stars). Wallabag is written in PHP under MIT; Showly is written in Kotlin under GPL-3.0. Wallabag has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Showly 7%. Wallabag 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
| Wallabag | Showly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 13K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-14 | 2026-06-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 896 | ⑂ 99 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Wallabag if
- You weight community size — 13K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Showly if
- You want the Showly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and Showly fits your workflow better
About Wallabag
wallabag is a self hosted web application for saving web pages and reading them later. It lives in the PHP and Symfony ecosystem, is released under the MIT license, and presents itself as a read it later tool for users who want to keep their saved articles on their own server. The project also points to wallabag.it as a hosted account option for people who do not want to run the application themselves.
read the full Wallabag overview →
About Showly
Showly is an open source mobile application for tracking television shows and movies. The GitHub repository calls it a modern manager for movies and TV shows, and the README says the Android version is free of Google services. It lives in the Android ecosystem, with an iOS release announced for January 2025, and it uses Trakt.tv for catalog and synchronization.
read the full Showly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Wallabag or Showly more popular?
Wallabag has 12,969 GitHub stars and Showly has 1,460. Wallabag has the larger community by that measure.
Are Wallabag and Showly free?
Both are open source. Wallabag is licensed under MIT and Showly under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Wallabag and Showly?
Wallabag is written in PHP and Showly in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Wallabag or Showly?
Choose Wallabag if you want the larger community (12,969 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Showly if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.