head to head · open source
Khoj vs MiaoYan
Khoj has 37,420 GitHub stars, 2,488 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. MiaoYan has 8,647 stars, 512 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. Khoj leads on adoption by 333% (37,420 vs 8,647 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 | ★ 37K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-08-02 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 512 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Khoj if
- You weight community size — 37K 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
Khoj is a self hostable, open source AI second brain written in Python that turns any local or online large language model into a personal research, automation, and agent platform for individuals, small teams, and enterprises that want their documents and queries kept under their own control.
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 →
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 37,420 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,647. 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 (37,420 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.