head to head · open source
fsnotes vs dstask
fsnotes has 7,564 GitHub stars, 587 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. dstask has 1,217 stars, 68 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. fsnotes leads on adoption by 522% (7,564 vs 1,217 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 | ★ 7.6K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 587 | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick fsnotes if
- You weight community size — 7.6K 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 简体中文 · 繁體中文 Own your notes. Find them instantly. FSNotes is a fast, native notes app for macOS and iOS. It gives you a focused writing experience while keeping every note in portable Markdown or plain text files—not a proprietary database. Why choose FSNotes No lock in. Open and edit your notes with any compatible app, now or years from now. Fast at any scale. Search and navigate smoothly across collections of 10,000+ notes. Built around your workflow. Use multiple folders, external editors, iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and optional Git backups. More than basic Markdown. Connect ideas with tags and [[links]]…
read the full fsnotes overview →
About dstask
dstask Single binary terminal based TODO manager with git based sync + markdown notes per task Dstask is a personal task tracker designed to help you focus. It is similar to Taskwarrior but uses git to synchronise instead of a special protocol. If you're at home in the terminal, and with solving the occasional merge conflict, then dstask is for you! Video courtesy of xGoivo thanks! Features: Powerful context system (automatically applies filter/tags to queries and new tasks) Git powered sync /undo/resolve (passwordstore.org style) which means no need to set up a sync server, and syncing between devices is easy!…
read the full dstask overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fsnotes or dstask more popular?
fsnotes has 7,564 GitHub stars and dstask has 1,217. 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 (7,564 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dstask if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.