head to head · open source
SurfSense vs MiaoYan
SurfSense has 16,169 GitHub stars, 1,538 forks, 130 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MiaoYan has 8,647 stars, 512 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. SurfSense leads on adoption by 87% (16,169 vs 8,647 stars). SurfSense is written in Python under a custom or non-standard licence; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. SurfSense has attracted 10% 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.
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Side by side
| SurfSense | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-19 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 512 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SurfSense if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other 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 SurfSense
SurfSense is an open source NotebookLM alternative and privacy first knowledge base that can work with any AI model chosen by the user. It is a Python productivity and knowledge management project in the agent, RAG, LangChain, LangGraph, FastAPI, Next.js, and Ollama ecosystem. The project presents itself as an open web research platform for AI agents, with live data connectors and a built in knowledge base that keeps findings searchable with citations.
read the full SurfSense overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SurfSense or MiaoYan more popular?
SurfSense has 16,169 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,647. SurfSense has the larger community by that measure.
Are SurfSense and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. SurfSense has no licence declared in this registry, and MiaoYan is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between SurfSense and MiaoYan?
SurfSense 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, SurfSense or MiaoYan?
Choose SurfSense if you want the larger community (16,169 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.