head to head · open source
Fizzy vs freeplane
Fizzy has 8,283 GitHub stars, 1,212 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. freeplane has 4,456 stars, 503 forks, 453 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Fizzy leads on adoption by 86% (8,283 vs 4,456 stars). Fizzy is written in Ruby under a custom or non-standard licence; freeplane is written in Java under GPL-2.0. Fizzy has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, freeplane 11%. Fizzy 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
| Fizzy | freeplane | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.3K | ★ 4.5K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Java |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 503 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Fizzy if
- You weight community size — 8.3K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freeplane if
- You want the freeplane feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and freeplane fits your workflow better
About Fizzy
Fizzy This is the source code of Fizzy, the Kanban tracking tool for issues and ideas by 37signals. Running your own Fizzy instance If you want to run your own Fizzy instance, but don't need to change its code, you can use our pre built Docker image. You'll need access to a server on which you can run Docker, and you'll need to configure some options to customize your installation. You can find the details of how to do a Docker based deployment in our Docker deployment guide. If you want more flexibility to customize your Fizzy installation by changing its code, and deploy those changes to your server, then we…
read the full Fizzy overview →
About freeplane
Freeplane ========= Freeplane is a free and open source software application that supports thinking, sharing information, getting things done at work, in school and at home. It provides you a set of tools for mind mapping (also known as concept mapping or information mapping) and navigating the mapped information. Freeplane is also a more robust and superior alternative to Xmind, Mindmeister, and similar mind mapping software. Freeplane is written in Java using OSGi and Java Swing. It runs on any operating system that has a current version of Java installed. It can be installed or can run from removable storage…
read the full freeplane overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Fizzy or freeplane more popular?
Fizzy has 8,283 GitHub stars and freeplane has 4,456. Fizzy has the larger community by that measure.
Are Fizzy and freeplane free?
Both are open source. Fizzy has no licence declared in this registry, and freeplane is licensed under GPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Fizzy and freeplane?
Fizzy is written in Ruby and freeplane in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Fizzy or freeplane?
Choose Fizzy if you want the larger community (8,283 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose freeplane if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.