head to head · open source
Zen vs Wire
Zen has 4,225 GitHub stars, 143 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Wire has 2,549 stars, 180 forks, 173 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. Zen leads on adoption by 66% (4,225 vs 2,549 stars). Zen is written in Go under MIT; Wire is written in various languages under GPL-3.0. Zen has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Wire 7%. 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 | Wire | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.2K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-01-05 |
| Forks | ⑂ 143 | ⑂ 180 |
| 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 Wire if
- You want the Wire feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and Wire 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 Wire
Wire is an open source secure collaboration platform whose GitHub overview repository gathers code for clients, encryption, audio/video/signaling, server components, and protocol definitions. It lives in the security and privacy ecosystem, specifically data security and privacy.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zen or Wire more popular?
Zen has 4,225 GitHub stars and Wire has 2,549. Zen has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen and Wire free?
Both are open source. Zen is licensed under MIT and Wire under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen and Wire?
Zen is written in Go and Wire in various languages. 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 Wire?
Choose Zen if you want the larger community (4,225 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Wire if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.