head to head · open source
Joplin vs MiaoYan
Joplin has 56,429 GitHub stars, 6,297 forks, 632 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MiaoYan has 8,646 stars, 511 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 553% (56,429 vs 8,646 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, MiaoYan 6%. 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 | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 511 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Joplin if
- You weight community size — 56K 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 MiaoYan if
- You want the MiaoYan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and MiaoYan fits your workflow better
About Joplin
Joplin is a free, open source, privacy focused note taking and to do application that keeps notes as Markdown on your own device and synchronises them, end to end encrypted, across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
read the full Joplin overview →
About MiaoYan
MiaoYan is a lightweight, local first Markdown note taking app for macOS, written in Swift and released under the MIT licence, aimed at people who want fast plain text notes on their own disk without accounts, telemetry, or a hosted service.
read the full MiaoYan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or MiaoYan more popular?
Joplin has 56,429 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,646. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and MiaoYan is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and MiaoYan?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and MiaoYan in Swift. 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 MiaoYan?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,429 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.