head to head · open source
Joplin vs MarkFlowy
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,391 forks, 658 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MarkFlowy has 2,428 stars, 96 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 2,247% (56,994 vs 2,428 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; MarkFlowy is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, MarkFlowy 4%. 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 | MarkFlowy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 96 |
| 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 MarkFlowy if
- You want the MarkFlowy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and MarkFlowy 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 MarkFlowy
MarkFlowy beta Modern and intelligent Markdown editor. [![App Version][version badge]][release] [![Downloads][downloads badge]][release] [![Build Status][build badge]][build] [![Code of Conduct][coc badge]][coc] [![Commit Activity][commit badge]][commit] [![issues closed]]( [![PRs Welcome][prs welcome badge]][prs welcome] [![TypeScript version icon]]( [![Rust version icon]]( [![License][license badge]][license] [![codefactor]]( English 简体中文 日本語 Features High Performance: The rebuilt editor dramatically improves opening speed for large documents. A 2 MB Markdown file opened in around 1 second in testing. Built in…
read the full MarkFlowy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or MarkFlowy more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and MarkFlowy has 2,428. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and MarkFlowy free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and MarkFlowy is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and MarkFlowy?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and MarkFlowy 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 MarkFlowy?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose MarkFlowy if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.