head to head · open source
Zotero vs MiaoYan
Zotero has 15,327 GitHub stars, 1,124 forks, 1,600 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. MiaoYan has 8,647 stars, 512 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. Zotero leads on adoption by 77% (15,327 vs 8,647 stars). Zotero is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. Zotero 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.
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Side by side
| Zotero | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.1K | ⑂ 512 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zotero if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- 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 Zotero
Zotero is a free tool for research sources. It lives in the JavaScript application ecosystem and is listed under Productivity & Utilities / Note Taking & Knowledge Management. The provided GitHub metadata reports 15,272 stars, 1,117 forks, 1,600 open issues, 0 contributors, a repository age of 0 years, and a last push timestamp of 2026 09 14T16:40:51Z. The homepage is https://www.zotero.org, and no topics are listed. The license field is NOASSERTION.
read the full Zotero 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 Zotero or MiaoYan more popular?
Zotero has 15,327 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,647. Zotero has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zotero and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. Zotero has no licence declared in this registry, and MiaoYan is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zotero and MiaoYan?
Zotero is written in JavaScript 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, Zotero or MiaoYan?
Choose Zotero if you want the larger community (15,327 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.