head to head · open source
BookStack vs nb
BookStack has 19,123 GitHub stars, 2,435 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nb has 8,462 stars, 258 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 126% (19,123 vs 8,462 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; nb is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, nb 3%. BookStack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| BookStack | nb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 258 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BookStack if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nb if
- You want the nb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and nb fits your workflow better
About BookStack
BookStack A platform for storing and organising information and documentation. Details for BookStack can be found on the official website at Installation Instructions Documentation Demo Instance Screenshots BookStack Blog Issue List Community Discussions Support Options 📚 Project Definition BookStack is an opinionated documentation platform that provides a pleasant and simple out of the box experience. New users to an instance should find the experience intuitive and only basic word processing skills should be required to get involved in creating content on BookStack. The platform should provide advanced power…
read the full BookStack overview →
About nb
nb is a command line and local web note‑taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application with: plain text data storage, encryption, filtering, pinning, tagging, and search, Git backed versioning and syncing, Pandoc backed conversion, [[wiki style linking]] , terminal and GUI web browsing, inline images, todos with tasks, global and local notebooks, organization with folders, customizable color themes, extensibility through plugins, and more, in a single portable script. nb creates notes in text based formats like Markdown, Org, LaTeX, and AsciiDoc, can work with files in any format, can import and…
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or nb more popular?
BookStack has 19,123 GitHub stars and nb has 8,462. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and nb free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and nb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and nb?
BookStack is written in PHP and nb in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BookStack or nb?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,123 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.