head to head · open source
Joplin vs obsidian-mind
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,390 forks, 652 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obsidian-mind has 5,480 stars, 610 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 17 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 940% (56,994 vs 5,480 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript under MIT. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, obsidian-mind 11%. Joplin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (obsidian), 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 | obsidian-mind | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 610 |
| 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 obsidian-mind if
- You want the obsidian-mind feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and obsidian-mind 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 obsidian-mind
🌐 English 日本語 中文 한국어 Obsidian Mind An Obsidian vault that gives AI coding agents persistent memory. Built for Claude Code, with working hooks for Codex CLI and Gemini CLI. Start a session, talk about your day, and the agent handles the rest — notes, links, indexes, performance tracking. Every conversation builds on the last. 🔴 The Problem AI coding agents are powerful, but they forget. Every session starts from zero — no context on your goals, your team, your patterns, your wins. You re explain the same things. You lose decisions made three conversations ago. The knowledge never compounds. 🟢 The Solution Give…
read the full obsidian-mind overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or obsidian-mind more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and obsidian-mind has 5,480. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and obsidian-mind free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and obsidian-mind is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and obsidian-mind?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and obsidian-mind 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 obsidian-mind?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose obsidian-mind if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.