head to head · open source
zinx vs pokerth
zinx has 7,764 GitHub stars, 1,262 forks, 96 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. pokerth has 657 stars, 252 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zinx leads on adoption by 1,082% (7,764 vs 657 stars). zinx is written in Go under MIT; pokerth is written in C++ under AGPL-3.0. zinx has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, pokerth 38%. pokerth 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 | pokerth | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.8K | ★ 657 |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-06-06 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 252 |
| 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 pokerth if
- You want the pokerth feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and pokerth 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 pokerth
PokerTH is an open source Texas Hold'em poker game and engine written in C++ with Qt, for players who want to play against computer opponents or against other people over the internet, and for hosts who want to run the multiplayer server themselves.
read the full pokerth overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zinx or pokerth more popular?
zinx has 7,764 GitHub stars and pokerth has 657. zinx has the larger community by that measure.
Are zinx and pokerth free?
Both are open source. zinx is licensed under MIT and pokerth under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zinx and pokerth?
zinx is written in Go and pokerth 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 pokerth?
Choose zinx if you want the larger community (7,764 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pokerth if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.