head to head · open source
Joplin vs Lorien
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,391 forks, 658 open issues and last shipped today. Lorien has 6,871 stars, 315 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 729% (56,994 vs 6,871 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Lorien is written in GDScript under MIT. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Lorien 5%. Joplin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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 | Lorien | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | GDScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2025-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 315 |
| 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 Lorien if
- You want the Lorien feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches GDScript
- You evaluated both and Lorien 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 Lorien
Lorien Lorien is an infinite canvas drawing/note taking app that is focused on performance, small savefiles and simplicity . It's not based on bitmap images like Krita, Gimp or Photoshop; it rather saves brush strokes as a collection of points and renders them at runtime (kind of like SVG). It's primarily designed to be used as a digital notebook and as brainstorming tool. While it can totally be used to make small sketches and diagrams, it is not meant to replace traditional art programs that operate on bitmap images. It is entirely written in the Godot Game Engine. For an overview on how to use Lorien have a…
read the full Lorien overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or Lorien more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and Lorien has 6,871. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and Lorien free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and Lorien is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and Lorien?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and Lorien in GDScript. 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 Lorien?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Lorien if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.