head to head · open source
Khoj vs MiaoYan
Khoj has 37,970 GitHub stars, 2,530 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. MiaoYan has 8,719 stars, 522 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Khoj leads on adoption by 335% (37,970 vs 8,719 stars). Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. Khoj has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, MiaoYan 6%. MiaoYan 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Khoj | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-08-02 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 522 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Khoj if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick MiaoYan if
- You want the MiaoYan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and MiaoYan fits your workflow better
About Khoj
Your AI second brain 📑 Docs • 🌐 Web • 🔥 App • 💬 Discord • ✍🏽 Blog 🎁 New Meet 🌶️ Pipali our open source AI coworker that runs on your computer. Read about Khoj's excellent performance on modern retrieval and reasoning benchmarks. Overview Khoj is a personal AI app to extend your capabilities. It smoothly scales up from an on device personal AI to a cloud scale enterprise AI. Chat with any local or online LLM (e.g llama3, qwen, gemma, mistral, gpt, claude, gemini, deepseek). Get answers from the internet and your docs (including image, pdf, markdown, org mode, word, notion files). Access it from your…
About MiaoYan
English 简体中文 MiaoYan Lightweight Markdown note taking app for macOS Features Fantastic : Local first, no data collection, split editor & preview, wikilink backlinks, LaTeX, Mermaid Beautiful : Minimalist design, three column layout, dark mode, macOS 26 glass, distraction free Fast : Swift 6 native, better performance than Electron based apps Simple : Lightweight, version history, keyboard shortcuts, auto formatting Installation 1. Mac App Store (paid, automatic updates): 2. Homebrew : 3. GitHub Releases : download the latest DMG from GitHub Releases (macOS 11.5+) All three options share the same codebase and…
read the full MiaoYan 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 Khoj or MiaoYan more popular?
Khoj has 37,970 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,719. Khoj has the larger community by that measure.
Are Khoj and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. Khoj is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MiaoYan under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Khoj and MiaoYan?
Khoj is written in Python and MiaoYan 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, Khoj or MiaoYan?
Choose Khoj if you want the larger community (37,970 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.