head to head · open source
mkdocs-material vs obsidian-wiki
mkdocs-material has 27,594 GitHub stars, 4,153 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. obsidian-wiki has 3,662 stars, 368 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mkdocs-material leads on adoption by 654% (27,594 vs 3,662 stars). mkdocs-material is written in Python under MIT; obsidian-wiki is written in Python under MIT. mkdocs-material has attracted 15% as many forks as stars, obsidian-wiki 10%. obsidian-wiki 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
| mkdocs-material | obsidian-wiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 28K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-30 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 368 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick mkdocs-material if
- You weight community size — 28K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick obsidian-wiki if
- You want the obsidian-wiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and obsidian-wiki fits your workflow better
About mkdocs-material
A powerful documentation framework on top of MkDocs Write your documentation in Markdown and create a professional static site for your Open Source or commercial project in minutes – searchable, customizable, more than 60 languages, for all devices. Check out the demo – squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs material . Silver sponsors Bronze sponsors <img src=" height="58"
read the full mkdocs-material overview →
About obsidian-wiki
obsidian wiki A digital brain you grow with your AI agent. It remembers what you figure out, connects it to what you already know, and answers when you ask. English 繁體中文 You solve a hard problem on a Tuesday. Three months later, in a different repo, you solve it again from scratch — because the answer lived in a chat log you'll never find. This fixes that. Point it at a folder, tell your agent what to remember, and it compiles what you learn into interconnected markdown you own. The pattern comes from Andrej Karpathy's LLM Wiki gist: compile knowledge once and keep it current, instead of asking an LLM the same…
read the full obsidian-wiki overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Documentation & Knowledge Base projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Documentation & Knowledge Base field.
Frequently asked questions
Is mkdocs-material or obsidian-wiki more popular?
mkdocs-material has 27,594 GitHub stars and obsidian-wiki has 3,662. mkdocs-material has the larger community by that measure.
Are mkdocs-material and obsidian-wiki free?
Both are open source. mkdocs-material is licensed under MIT and obsidian-wiki under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between mkdocs-material and obsidian-wiki?
mkdocs-material is written in Python and obsidian-wiki in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, mkdocs-material or obsidian-wiki?
Choose mkdocs-material if you want the larger community (27,594 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose obsidian-wiki if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.