selfhost.directory

The index of self-hostable projects — ranked, categorized and served with live updates.
Own your data and stop giving it to big tech.

ElementvsTerraforming Mars

Two self-hosted projects, compared on the numbers selfhost.directory tracks live: score, popularity, release cadence and setup effort.

ElementTerraforming Mars
Score76/10062/100
Rank in category#2 of 13 in Instant Messaging#4 of 14 in Gaming
GitHub stars13 621961
Stars, last 30 days+119+9
Stable releases, 12 months180
Latest releasev1.12.33 · 27 Oct 2026—
SetupModerateModerate
Official Docker imageYesYes
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
Main languageTypescriptTypescript

Which one should you pick?

Element scores 76/100 against 62/100 for Terraforming Mars, so it is the safer default.

Element ships more often: 18 stable releases in the past year, against 0 for Terraforming Mars.

Element is growing faster right now (+119 stars in 30 days).

Swap a project

Keep Element, compare it with
Keep Terraforming Mars, compare it with