Lumi vs Scratch

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted learning & courses options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureLumiScratch
CategoryLearning & CoursesLearning & Courses
LicenseMITBSD-3-Clause
LanguageJavaScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM512 MB50 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcebare-metal
GitHub stars★ 190★ 4,811
First released20192023
ReplacesArticulate, Nearpod

Why pick each one

Choose Lumi if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Written in JavaScript
  • Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Lumi details

Choose Scratch if…

  • Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (4.8k GitHub stars)
  • Written in JavaScript
Scratch details

Frequently asked questions

Is Lumi or Scratch better?

Neither is universally better. Scratch has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Lumi and Scratch free and open-source?

Yes. Lumi is licensed under MIT and Scratch under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Lumi and Scratch with Docker?

Lumi: check the project docs for container support. Scratch: check the project docs for container support.

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