Element vs Novu
Both are self-hosted communication - custom communication systems projects. This page compares how well each one is actually maintained — the part you cannot see from a feature list.
| Element | Novu | |
|---|---|---|
| Health score | 91/100 | 92/100 |
| Commits (11 mo) | 2574 | 2197 |
| Commits (last 3 mo) | 783 | 797 |
| Stars | 14k | 40k |
| Latest release | 23 Sept 2026 | 7 Sept 2026 |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Built with | Nodejs | Docker, Nodejs |
| Typical RAM | 1 GB | 2 GB |
Element
Fully-featured Matrix client for Web, iOS & Android.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 93% of tracked projects; popularity more than 83%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
Novu
Notification infrastructure for developers.
High commit volume, frequent releases and growing activity.
Commit activity more than 90% of tracked projects; popularity more than 95%. How this is calculated.
Commits, last 11 months
How to read this
Everything above is measured, not opinion: commit counts and release dates come from the public repositories, and the health score ranks each project against all 1352 projects we track. Read the full method.
What this comparison deliberately does not do is tell you which has the better feature set. Maintenance health tells you which project will still be receiving security fixes in two years. Decide that first, then compare features on the projects that survive the filter.
See every option in this category: self-hosted communication - custom communication systems.