head to head · open source
Joplin vs saber
Joplin has 56,429 GitHub stars, 6,297 forks, 632 open issues and last shipped yesterday. saber has 4,815 stars, 371 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 1,072% (56,429 vs 4,815 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; saber is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, saber 8%. Joplin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (android), 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 | saber | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 371 |
| 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 saber if
- You want the saber feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and saber 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 saber
Saber is a cross platform, open source handwriting notes app for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows, built for students, professionals and anyone else who writes by hand on a screen and wants their notes to stay on their own terms.
read the full saber overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or saber more popular?
Joplin has 56,429 GitHub stars and saber has 4,815. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and saber free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and saber is licensed under GPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and saber?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and saber in Dart. 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 saber?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,429 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose saber if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.