# polar vs Sunshine

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

| | polar | Sunshine |
|---|---|---|
| Score | 71/100 | 84/100 ✓ |
| Rank in category | #1 of 13 in Billing | #2 of 22 in Remote Desktop |
| GitHub stars | 10 437 | 42 783 ✓ |
| Stars, last 30 days | +158 | +1 267 ✓ |
| Stable releases, 12 months | 1 | 86 ✓ |
| Latest release | @polar-sh/cli@3.0.0 · 16 Oct 2026 | v2026.1028.122642 · 28 Oct 2026 ✓ |
| Setup | Advanced | Easy ✓ |
| Official Docker image | No | Yes ✓ |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Main language | Python | C |

## Which one should you pick?

Sunshine scores 84/100 against 71/100 for polar, so it is the safer default.

Sunshine ships more often: 86 stable releases in the past year, against 1 for polar.

If you want the quickest setup, Sunshine is easier to run; polar needs more configuration.

Sunshine is growing faster right now (+1 267 stars in 30 days).

## Details

- [polar](https://selfhost.directory/project/polar) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/polar.md)
- [Sunshine](https://selfhost.directory/project/sunshine) (markdown: https://selfhost.directory/project/sunshine.md)

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Source: https://selfhost.directory/compare/polar-vs-sunshine