head to head · open source
Joplin vs Tolaria
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,390 forks, 652 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tolaria has 20,423 stars, 1,409 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Joplin leads on adoption by 179% (56,994 vs 20,423 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Tolaria is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Tolaria 7%. 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 | Tolaria | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 20K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Tolaria if
- You want the Tolaria 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 Tolaria 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 Tolaria
💧 Tolaria Tolaria is a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux for managing markdown knowledge bases . People use it for a variety of use cases: Operate second brains and personal knowledge Organize company docs as context for AI Store OpenClaw/assistants memory and procedures Personally, I use it to run my life (hey 👋 Luca here). I have a massive workspace of 10,000+ notes, which are the result of my Refactoring work + a ton of personal journaling and second braining . Sponsors Tolaria is supported by a small panel of tools that help keep the project healthy, tested, and ready for AI assisted development. I…
read the full Tolaria overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or Tolaria more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and Tolaria has 20,423. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and Tolaria free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and Tolaria is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and Tolaria?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and Tolaria 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 Tolaria?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Tolaria if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.