head to head · open source
nb vs NoteDiscovery
nb has 8,405 GitHub stars, 254 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped 25 days ago. NoteDiscovery has 2,807 stars, 233 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nb leads on adoption by 199% (8,405 vs 2,807 stars). nb is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0; NoteDiscovery is written in JavaScript under MIT. nb has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, NoteDiscovery 8%. NoteDiscovery was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (knowledge-base, markdown, note-taking), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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
| nb | NoteDiscovery | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.4K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Shell | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-26 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 254 | ⑂ 233 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nb if
- You weight community size — 8.4K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick NoteDiscovery if
- You want the NoteDiscovery feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and NoteDiscovery fits your workflow better
About nb
nb is a command line and local web note taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application distributed as a single portable shell script, aimed at people who want plain text notes, Git backed history, and local search without a hosted service.
About NoteDiscovery
NoteDiscovery is a lightweight, self hosted note taking and knowledge base application, written in JavaScript and released under the MIT licence, that stores every note as a plain markdown file in folders on your own server and is aimed at privacy conscious individuals, developers, knowledge workers, and teams who want to own their data.
read the full NoteDiscovery overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nb or NoteDiscovery more popular?
nb has 8,405 GitHub stars and NoteDiscovery has 2,807. nb has the larger community by that measure.
Are nb and NoteDiscovery free?
Both are open source. nb is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and NoteDiscovery under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nb and NoteDiscovery?
nb is written in Shell and NoteDiscovery in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nb or NoteDiscovery?
Choose nb if you want the larger community (8,405 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose NoteDiscovery if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.