head to head · open source
Joplin vs vnote
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,391 forks, 658 open issues and last shipped today. vnote has 13,029 stars, 1,295 forks, 270 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Joplin leads on adoption by 337% (56,994 vs 13,029 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; vnote is written in C++ under LGPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, vnote 10%. 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Joplin | vnote | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 13K |
| License | Custom / other | LGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 vnote if
- You want the vnote feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and vnote 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 vnote
VNote 简体中文 Project on Gitee A pleasant note taking platform. For more information, please visit VNote's Home Page . Description VNote is a Qt based, free and open source note taking application, focusing on Markdown now. VNote is designed to provide a pleasant note taking platform with excellent editing experience. VNote is NOT just a simple editor for Markdown. By providing notes management, VNote makes taking notes in Markdown simpler. In the future, VNote will support more formats besides Markdown. Utilizing Qt, VNote could run on Linux , Windows , and macOS . Downloads Continuous builds on master branch…
read the full vnote overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Note Taking & Knowledge Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Note Taking & Knowledge Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or vnote more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and vnote has 13,029. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and vnote free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and vnote is licensed under LGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and vnote?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and vnote 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 vnote?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose vnote if its feature set, stack or LGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.