head to head · open source
wordcraft vs IronCalc
wordcraft has 5,339 GitHub stars, 1,605 forks, 331 open issues and last shipped yesterday. IronCalc has 4,206 stars, 199 forks, 256 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. wordcraft leads on adoption by 27% (5,339 vs 4,206 stars). wordcraft is written in Rust under Apache-2.0; IronCalc is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. wordcraft has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, IronCalc 5%. wordcraft 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
| wordcraft | IronCalc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.3K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2026-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.6K | ⑂ 199 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wordcraft if
- You weight community size — 5.3K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick IronCalc if
- You want the IronCalc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and IronCalc fits your workflow better
About wordcraft
WordCraft is an open source, clean room reimplementation of Microsoft Word written in pure Rust, aimed at people who want the familiar Word document workflow — ribbon, styles, track changes, references — as a native, offline application they can run themselves.
read the full wordcraft overview →
About IronCalc
IronCalc is a spreadsheet engine and set of tools. It is the main engine of the IronCalc ecosystem, and it lives in the Rust open source spreadsheet ecosystem. The project provides a work in progress engine, an xlsx reader, and an xlsx writer. It is designed to be embedded, self hosted, or run in the browser.
read the full IronCalc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wordcraft or IronCalc more popular?
wordcraft has 5,339 GitHub stars and IronCalc has 4,206. wordcraft has the larger community by that measure.
Are wordcraft and IronCalc free?
Both are open source. wordcraft is licensed under Apache-2.0 and IronCalc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wordcraft and IronCalc ?
wordcraft is written in Rust and IronCalc in Rust. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wordcraft or IronCalc ?
Choose wordcraft if you want the larger community (5,339 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose IronCalc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.