head to head · open source
Joplin vs Beaver Notes
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,390 forks, 652 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Beaver Notes has 1,361 stars, 66 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 4,088% (56,994 vs 1,361 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Beaver Notes is written in JavaScript under MIT. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Beaver Notes 5%. Joplin 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
| Joplin | Beaver Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 66 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Joplin if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Beaver Notes if
- You want the Beaver Notes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Beaver Notes fits your workflow better
About Joplin
Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format. Notes exported from Evernote can be imported into Joplin, including the formatted content (which is converted to Markdown), resources (images, attachments, etc.) and complete metadata (geolocation, updated time, created time, etc.). Plain Markdown files can also be imported. Joplin is "offline first", which means you…
read the full Joplin overview →
About Beaver Notes
Beaver Notes Built for people who actually read privacy policies. Your notes, your rules: on your device, your server, or ours. Website · Blog · Docs · Downloads · Roadmap You're on the tauri branch. The v5 rewrite. This is where Beaver Notes is heading. The current stable release lives on development . Most note taking apps make the same quiet trade: your convenience in exchange for access to your data. It's easy to miss in the onboarding flow, buried somewhere in a terms of service document most people never open. Beaver Notes starts from a different place. Your notes live on your device. They're not indexed…
read the full Beaver Notes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or Beaver Notes more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and Beaver Notes has 1,361. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and Beaver Notes free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and Beaver Notes is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and Beaver Notes?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and Beaver Notes in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Joplin or Beaver Notes?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Beaver Notes if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.