head to head · open source
nb vs zk
nb has 8,462 GitHub stars, 258 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zk has 2,863 stars, 199 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. nb leads on adoption by 196% (8,462 vs 2,863 stars). nb is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0; zk is written in Go under GPL-3.0. nb has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, zk 7%. nb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cli, 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 | zk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.5K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Shell | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 258 | ⑂ 199 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nb if
- You weight community size — 8.5K 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 zk if
- You want the zk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and zk fits your workflow better
About nb
nb is a command line and local web note‑taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application with: plain text data storage, encryption, filtering, pinning, tagging, and search, Git backed versioning and syncing, Pandoc backed conversion, [[wiki style linking]] , terminal and GUI web browsing, inline images, todos with tasks, global and local notebooks, organization with folders, customizable color themes, extensibility through plugins, and more, in a single portable script. nb creates notes in text based formats like Markdown, Org, LaTeX, and AsciiDoc, can work with files in any format, can import and…
About zk
A plain text note taking assistant Description zk is a command line tool helping you to maintain a plain text Zettelkasten or personal wiki. Looking for a quick usage example? Or want to see it in action? Checkout Shivan's video, Note taking System ALL Programmers Should Consider . Join us on Matrix for general, support and development discussion: \ zk org:pub.solar. Highlights Creating notes from templates Advanced search and filtering capabilities including tags, links and mentions Integration with your favorite editors: Any LSP compatible editor zk emacs for Emacs zk nvim for Neovim 0.8+ zk vscode for Visual…
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Frequently asked questions
Is nb or zk more popular?
nb has 8,462 GitHub stars and zk has 2,863. nb has the larger community by that measure.
Are nb and zk free?
Both are open source. nb is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and zk under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nb and zk?
nb is written in Shell and zk in Go. 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 zk?
Choose nb if you want the larger community (8,462 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose zk if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.