head to head · open source
freeplane vs mdSilo-app
freeplane has 4,368 GitHub stars, 498 forks, 453 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mdSilo-app has 851 stars, 48 forks, 65 open issues and last shipped yesterday. freeplane leads on adoption by 413% (4,368 vs 851 stars). freeplane is written in Java under GPL-2.0; mdSilo-app is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. freeplane has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, mdSilo-app 6%. freeplane was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (mindmap, note-taking), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| freeplane | mdSilo-app | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.4K | ★ 851 |
| License | GPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Java | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 498 | ⑂ 48 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick freeplane if
- You weight community size — 4.4K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mdSilo-app if
- You want the mdSilo-app feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and mdSilo-app fits your workflow better
About freeplane
Freeplane is a free and open source desktop application for mind mapping, concept mapping and information mapping, written in Java with OSGi and Java Swing. It lives in the Java desktop ecosystem and is distributed under the GPL 2.0 license, with source hosted on GitHub and binary downloads published through SourceForge. The project has been under development for roughly 14 years and sits in the business software category of project and work management tools.
read the full freeplane overview →
About mdSilo-app
mdSilo is a local first knowledge base and feed reader, distributed as a desktop application under the AGPL 3.0 license. The project is written in TypeScript and built with React and Tauri, the Rust based cross platform application framework, with ProseMirror providing the editor layer. It lives in the note taking and personal knowledge management ecosystem, alongside other plain text, file based writing tools, and it targets Windows, macOS, and Linux as native builds with an additional web version hosted at mdsilo.com.
read the full mdSilo-app overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is freeplane or mdSilo-app more popular?
freeplane has 4,368 GitHub stars and mdSilo-app has 851. freeplane has the larger community by that measure.
Are freeplane and mdSilo-app free?
Both are open source. freeplane is licensed under GPL-2.0 and mdSilo-app under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between freeplane and mdSilo-app?
freeplane is written in Java and mdSilo-app in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, freeplane or mdSilo-app?
Choose freeplane if you want the larger community (4,368 stars) or its GPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose mdSilo-app if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.