head to head · open source
zinx vs forgottenserver
zinx has 7,764 GitHub stars, 1,262 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. forgottenserver has 1,841 stars, 1,142 forks, 226 open issues and last shipped today. zinx leads on adoption by 322% (7,764 vs 1,841 stars). zinx is written in Go under MIT; forgottenserver is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. zinx has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, forgottenserver 62%. forgottenserver was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (game-server), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| zinx | forgottenserver | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.8K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-06-06 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 1.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick zinx if
- You weight community size — 7.8K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick forgottenserver if
- You want the forgottenserver feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and forgottenserver fits your workflow better
About zinx
Zinx is a lightweight concurrent server framework written in Go, aimed at developers who want a small, readable TCP server skeleton they can study and customise rather than adopt a large opaque application framework.
About forgottenserver
The Forgotten Server is a free and open source MMORPG server emulator written in C++ that lets a team run its own OpenTibia compatible game world and connect players to it with a compatible client.
read the full forgottenserver overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zinx or forgottenserver more popular?
zinx has 7,764 GitHub stars and forgottenserver has 1,841. zinx has the larger community by that measure.
Are zinx and forgottenserver free?
Both are open source. zinx is licensed under MIT and forgottenserver under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zinx and forgottenserver?
zinx is written in Go and forgottenserver 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, zinx or forgottenserver?
Choose zinx if you want the larger community (7,764 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose forgottenserver if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.