head to head · open source
lerna vs WritingTools
lerna has 36,055 GitHub stars, 2,265 forks, 287 open issues and last shipped yesterday. WritingTools has 2,455 stars, 159 forks, 79 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. lerna leads on adoption by 1,369% (36,055 vs 2,455 stars). lerna is written in TypeScript under MIT; WritingTools is written in Swift under GPL-3.0. lerna has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, WritingTools 6%. lerna 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
| lerna | WritingTools | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 36K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-08-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.3K | ⑂ 159 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lerna if
- You weight community size — 36K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick WritingTools if
- You want the WritingTools feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and WritingTools fits your workflow better
About lerna
Lerna is a fast, modern build system for managing and publishing multiple JavaScript/TypeScript packages from the same repository, aimed at teams that maintain monorepos and publish packages to npm.
read the full lerna overview →
About WritingTools
WritingTools is an open source, system wide writing assistant for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It is inspired by Apple Intelligence Writing Tools and uses cloud based or local large language models to proofread, rewrite, summarize, and transform selected text across applications. The project is written in Swift and released under the GPL 3.0 license. The README states it works in nearly any language.
read the full WritingTools overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lerna or WritingTools more popular?
lerna has 36,055 GitHub stars and WritingTools has 2,455. lerna has the larger community by that measure.
Are lerna and WritingTools free?
Both are open source. lerna is licensed under MIT and WritingTools under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lerna and WritingTools?
lerna is written in TypeScript and WritingTools in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, lerna or WritingTools?
Choose lerna if you want the larger community (36,055 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose WritingTools if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.