head to head · open source
Zen vs Tongsuo
Zen has 4,225 GitHub stars, 143 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Tongsuo has 1,535 stars, 260 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. Zen leads on adoption by 175% (4,225 vs 1,535 stars). Zen is written in Go under MIT; Tongsuo is written in C under Apache-2.0. Zen has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Tongsuo 17%. Zen 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
| Zen | Tongsuo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.2K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 143 | ⑂ 260 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zen if
- You weight community size — 4.2K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Tongsuo if
- You want the Tongsuo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Tongsuo fits your workflow better
About Zen
Zen is an open source desktop application written in Go for Windows, macOS, and Linux under the MIT license. It operates as a system wide ad blocker and privacy guard, so it applies to traffic from applications on the machine rather than only to browser tabs. It lives in the desktop security and privacy ecosystem, where users want filtering without browser extensions.
About Tongsuo
Tongsuo (铜锁) is an open source C library of modern cryptographic primitives and secure communication protocols, developed under the OpenAtom Foundation, and it is built for teams that need Chinese commercial cryptography, TLS, PKI, and privacy preserving primitives from a single dependency.
read the full Tongsuo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen or Tongsuo more popular?
Zen has 4,225 GitHub stars and Tongsuo has 1,535. Zen has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen and Tongsuo free?
Both are open source. Zen is licensed under MIT and Tongsuo under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen and Tongsuo?
Zen is written in Go and Tongsuo in C. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zen or Tongsuo?
Choose Zen if you want the larger community (4,225 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tongsuo if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.