head to head · open source
obsidian-mind vs pm-brain
obsidian-mind has 5,486 GitHub stars, 611 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. pm-brain has 952 stars, 193 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. obsidian-mind leads on adoption by 476% (5,486 vs 952 stars). obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript under MIT; pm-brain is written in Python under MIT. obsidian-mind has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, pm-brain 20%. obsidian-mind was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (claude-code, second-brain), 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
| obsidian-mind | pm-brain | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.5K | ★ 952 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-17 | 2026-05-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 611 | ⑂ 193 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick obsidian-mind if
- You weight community size — 5.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pm-brain if
- You want the pm-brain feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pm-brain fits your workflow better
About obsidian-mind
🌐 English 日本語 中文 한국어 Obsidian Mind An Obsidian vault that gives AI coding agents persistent memory. Built for Claude Code, with working hooks for Codex CLI and Gemini CLI. Start a session, talk about your day, and the agent handles the rest — notes, links, indexes, performance tracking. Every conversation builds on the last. 🔴 The Problem AI coding agents are powerful, but they forget. Every session starts from zero — no context on your goals, your team, your patterns, your wins. You re explain the same things. You lose decisions made three conversations ago. The knowledge never compounds. 🟢 The Solution Give…
read the full obsidian-mind overview →
About pm-brain
PM Brain A second brain for product managers. Plain markdown files in a folder on your laptop. Claude reads them before answering, writes to them after, sweeps them every Friday. No vector DB. No cloud. No agent memory tricks. You manage one product. Your context is scattered across Notion, Linear, Slack, your dashboards, and your head. You ship a feature. Six weeks later, nobody remembers why you killed the other option. PM Brain fixes that. See it in action: A week with PM Brain: Lena's first five days is a short story of one PM using it on a real team. New here? Start there. Research preview. The architecture…
read the full pm-brain overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obsidian-mind or pm-brain more popular?
obsidian-mind has 5,486 GitHub stars and pm-brain has 952. obsidian-mind has the larger community by that measure.
Are obsidian-mind and pm-brain free?
Both are open source. obsidian-mind is licensed under MIT and pm-brain under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obsidian-mind and pm-brain?
obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript and pm-brain 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, obsidian-mind or pm-brain?
Choose obsidian-mind if you want the larger community (5,486 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pm-brain if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.