Toxic vs Etherpad
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options
— licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one
replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Compare Toxic with
choose an app… Chatwoot SimpleX Chat Tinode Centrifugo Screego Typebot Berty Mumble ejabberd The Lounge Papercups qTox Synapse FluffyChat Quicksy Bridge Tox Dino Peer-calls MongooseIM Syphon Delta Chat Element X Briar CoyIM Spark IM Gajim Session Linphone Chatmail Chatmail Relay SchildiChat Jangouts Snikket Jami Server Bridge Tigase XMPP Server Wesh Network Metronome IM Jami
Compare Etherpad with
choose an app… Plane Chatwoot Focalboard Super Productivity Wekan SimpleX Chat Docs by Suite Numerique OpenProject Habitica Self-Hosted Planka Leantime Centrifugo Screego Typebot CodiMD git-bug Kanboard Berty Mumble Kaneo HedgeDoc ONLYOFFICE Docs The Lounge Papercups Taskwarrior Zammad WorkAdventure Soketi Remark42 Isso FreeSWITCH qTox MiroTalk Ferdium FreeScout Telegram Bot API Server Rustpad Asterisk WeeChat Collabora Online Ergo irssi Quicksy Bridge Kamailio Cusdis Tox Stoat AnyCable Chitchatter Live Helper Chat Spacebar Nextcloud Talk Indico RetroShare SIPCAPTURE Homer Vrite Peer-calls mautrix-telegram Routr GlobaLeaks openSIPS mautrix Databag Galène InspIRCd Candy Hyphanet FusionPBX soju KiwiIRC Glowing Bear Bonfire Pretalx Delta Chat Notifo SimpleX Briar Quassel IRC OTS matrix-commander Mumble Web Comentario LibreOffice Online BitlBee ngIRCd Miaou Session Nextcloud Talk Signaling Server UnrealIRCd MiroTalk C2C matrix-appservice-irc Linphone Chatmail Relay Hookshot Atheme IRC Services Maunium Sticker Picker Spectrum 2 Shhh Gamja Jami Server Bridge Mollysocket Anope PushBits Comm Heisenbridge Slixmpp Ferdium Server Solanum Wesh Network Draupnir baibot matrix-media-repo Charybdis IRCd Zusam Cactus Comments ircd-hybrid Scuttlebutt Room Robust IRC Flexisip SAMA Biboumi Hebbot ircu2 Libervia Jami YunoHost Mail Relay 3CX ARN-Messager Freepbx GNUnet Groupboard MailBag Mailman3 Mailing List Manager Mlmmj Web Peachpub PrivMX WebMail SIP3 TrueConf Wazo Yeti-Switch
Feature Toxic Etherpad Category Chat & Communication Chat & Communication License GPL-3.0 Apache-2.0 Language C TypeScript Setup difficulty Medium Medium Min. RAM 64 MB 512 MB Deployment bare-metal, source docker, bare-metal, source GitHub stars ★ 1,301 ★ 18,481 First released 2014 2011 Replaces Skype, WhatsApp Google Docs
Why pick each one
Choose Toxic if… Released under the GPL-3.0 license Active community (1.3k GitHub stars) Written in C Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM Toxic details
Frequently asked questions Is Toxic or Etherpad better? Neither is universally better. Etherpad has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Toxic and Etherpad free and open-source? Yes. Toxic is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Etherpad under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Toxic and Etherpad with Docker? Toxic: check the project docs for container support. Etherpad: yes.