head to head · open source
Joplin vs kition
Joplin has 56,806 GitHub stars, 6,353 forks, 656 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kition has 520 stars, 39 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped today. Joplin leads on adoption by 10,824% (56,806 vs 520 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; kition is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, kition 8%. kition was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (electron, 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
| Joplin | kition | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 520 |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 39 |
| 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 kition if
- You want the kition feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kition 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 kition
Kition English · 简体中文 · Русский · 日本語 · Tiếng Việt · Français · Deutsch · Español Documents, Tables, Whiteboards, Agents, and Workflows in one desktop workspace. Write connected knowledge, think visually, build data tools, research the web, and automate repeatable work. Download Kition Website · Releases · Discussions · Contributing · Support · Security Kition brings Markdown documents, structured table files, an infinite Whiteboard, a tool using AI agent, web research, and visual workflows into one desktop workspace. Instead of making every task begin in a blank chat, Kition gives the Agent editable project…
read the full kition overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or kition more popular?
Joplin has 56,806 GitHub stars and kition has 520. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and kition free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and kition is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and kition?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and kition 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, Joplin or kition?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,806 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose kition if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.