head to head · open source
Joplin vs notes
Joplin has 56,433 GitHub stars, 6,297 forks, 632 open issues and last shipped today. notes has 4,267 stars, 384 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 1,223% (56,433 vs 4,267 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; notes is written in C++ under MPL-2.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, notes 9%. 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 | notes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | Custom / other | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-05-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 384 |
| 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 notes if
- You want the notes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and notes 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 notes
Notes is an open source, cross platform note taking application written in C++ with Qt, built for people who want a private, local first place to write Markdown notes on Linux, macOS, or Windows.
read the full notes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or notes more popular?
Joplin has 56,433 GitHub stars and notes has 4,267. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and notes free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and notes is licensed under MPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and notes?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and notes in C++. 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 notes?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,433 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose notes if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.