head to head · open source
fsnotes vs dstask
fsnotes has 7,498 GitHub stars, 578 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dstask has 1,204 stars, 68 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. fsnotes leads on adoption by 523% (7,498 vs 1,204 stars). fsnotes is written in Swift under MIT; dstask is written in Go under MIT. fsnotes has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dstask 6%. fsnotes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (notes-app), 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
| fsnotes | dstask | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.5K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 578 | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick fsnotes if
- You weight community size — 7.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dstask if
- You want the dstask feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dstask fits your workflow better
About fsnotes
FSNotes is a fast, native Markdown and plain text note taking app for macOS and iOS, written in Swift 5 and released under the MIT licence, built for people who want their notes kept as portable files rather than inside a proprietary database.
read the full fsnotes overview →
About dstask
dstask is a personal, terminal based task and note manager that keeps every task in a Git repository, built for developers and command line users who want Taskwarrior style tracking without operating a sync server.
read the full dstask overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fsnotes or dstask more popular?
fsnotes has 7,498 GitHub stars and dstask has 1,204. fsnotes has the larger community by that measure.
Are fsnotes and dstask free?
Both are open source. fsnotes is licensed under MIT and dstask under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fsnotes and dstask?
fsnotes is written in Swift and dstask in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, fsnotes or dstask?
Choose fsnotes if you want the larger community (7,498 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dstask if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.