head to head · open source
fsnotes vs saber
fsnotes has 7,497 GitHub stars, 578 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. saber has 4,817 stars, 371 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. fsnotes leads on adoption by 56% (7,497 vs 4,817 stars). fsnotes is written in Swift under MIT; saber is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. fsnotes has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, saber 8%. fsnotes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (ios, macos, 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 | saber | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 7.5K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Swift | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 578 | ⑂ 371 |
| 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 saber if
- You want the saber feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and saber 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 saber
Saber is a cross platform, open source handwriting notes app for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows, built for students, professionals and anyone else who writes by hand on a screen and wants their notes to stay on their own terms.
read the full saber overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is fsnotes or saber more popular?
fsnotes has 7,497 GitHub stars and saber has 4,817. fsnotes has the larger community by that measure.
Are fsnotes and saber free?
Both are open source. fsnotes is licensed under MIT and saber under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between fsnotes and saber?
fsnotes is written in Swift and saber in Dart. 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 saber?
Choose fsnotes if you want the larger community (7,497 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose saber if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.