head to head · open source
MiaoYan vs fsnotes
MiaoYan has 8,647 GitHub stars, 512 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. fsnotes has 7,497 stars, 578 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. MiaoYan leads on adoption by 15% (8,647 vs 7,497 stars). MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT; fsnotes is written in Swift under MIT. MiaoYan has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, fsnotes 8%. MiaoYan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 4 topic tags (macos, markdown, notes-app, swift), 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
| MiaoYan | fsnotes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.6K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 512 | ⑂ 578 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick MiaoYan if
- You weight community size — 8.6K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick fsnotes if
- You want the fsnotes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and fsnotes fits your workflow better
About MiaoYan
MiaoYan is a lightweight, local first Markdown note taking app for macOS, written in Swift and released under the MIT licence, aimed at people who want fast plain text notes on their own disk without accounts, telemetry, or a hosted service.
read the full MiaoYan overview →
About fsnotes
FSNotes is a fast, native Markdown and plain text note taking app for macOS and iOS, written in Swift 5 and released under the MIT licence, built for people who want their notes kept as portable files rather than inside a proprietary database.
read the full fsnotes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is MiaoYan or fsnotes more popular?
MiaoYan has 8,647 GitHub stars and fsnotes has 7,497. MiaoYan has the larger community by that measure.
Are MiaoYan and fsnotes free?
Both are open source. MiaoYan is licensed under MIT and fsnotes under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between MiaoYan and fsnotes?
MiaoYan is written in Swift and fsnotes in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, MiaoYan or fsnotes?
Choose MiaoYan if you want the larger community (8,647 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose fsnotes if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.