head to head · open source
Notesnook vs dstask
Notesnook has 14,886 GitHub stars, 1,044 forks, 1,012 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dstask has 1,217 stars, 68 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. Notesnook leads on adoption by 1,123% (14,886 vs 1,217 stars). Notesnook is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0; dstask is written in Go under MIT. Notesnook has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, dstask 6%. Notesnook was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (notes, notes-app), 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
| Notesnook | dstask | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.0K | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Notesnook if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dstask if
- You want the dstask feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dstask fits your workflow better
About Notesnook
Notesnook An end to end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote. Website About us Roadmap Downloads Twitter Discord Overview Notesnook is a free (as in speech) & open source note taking app focused on user privacy & ease of use. To ensure zero knowledge principles, Notesnook encrypts everything on your device using XChaCha20 Poly1305 & Argon2 . Notesnook is our proof that privacy does not (always) have to come at the cost of convenience. We aim to provide users peace of mind & 100% confidence that their notes are safe and secure. The decision to go fully open source is one of the most crucial steps towards…
read the full Notesnook overview →
About dstask
dstask Single binary terminal based TODO manager with git based sync + markdown notes per task Dstask is a personal task tracker designed to help you focus. It is similar to Taskwarrior but uses git to synchronise instead of a special protocol. If you're at home in the terminal, and with solving the occasional merge conflict, then dstask is for you! Video courtesy of xGoivo thanks! Features: Powerful context system (automatically applies filter/tags to queries and new tasks) Git powered sync /undo/resolve (passwordstore.org style) which means no need to set up a sync server, and syncing between devices is easy!…
read the full dstask overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Notesnook or dstask more popular?
Notesnook has 14,886 GitHub stars and dstask has 1,217. Notesnook has the larger community by that measure.
Are Notesnook and dstask free?
Both are open source. Notesnook is licensed under GPL-3.0 and dstask under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Notesnook and dstask?
Notesnook is written in TypeScript and dstask 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, Notesnook or dstask?
Choose Notesnook if you want the larger community (14,886 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dstask if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.