head to head · open source
obsidian-mind vs zotero-AI-Butler
obsidian-mind has 4,653 GitHub stars, 535 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. zotero-AI-Butler has 1,747 stars, 97 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. obsidian-mind leads on adoption by 166% (4,653 vs 1,747 stars). obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript under MIT; zotero-AI-Butler is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. obsidian-mind has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, zotero-AI-Butler 6%. zotero-AI-Butler was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (knowledge-management), 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 | zotero-AI-Butler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.7K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 535 | ⑂ 97 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick obsidian-mind if
- You weight community size — 4.7K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zotero-AI-Butler if
- You want the zotero-AI-Butler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zotero-AI-Butler fits your workflow better
About obsidian-mind
obsidian mind is a self organizing Obsidian vault template that gives AI coding agents persistent memory, built for developers and knowledge workers who run Claude Code, Codex CLI, or Gemini CLI and want every session to build on the last.
read the full obsidian-mind overview →
About zotero-AI-Butler
zotero AI Butler is a free, open source Zotero plugin written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0 that calls large language models to read the PDFs already sitting in a Zotero library and writes the results back as native Zotero notes, built for researchers, students, and anyone whose "read later" pile has outgrown their reading time.
read the full zotero-AI-Butler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is obsidian-mind or zotero-AI-Butler more popular?
obsidian-mind has 4,653 GitHub stars and zotero-AI-Butler has 1,747. obsidian-mind has the larger community by that measure.
Are obsidian-mind and zotero-AI-Butler free?
Both are open source. obsidian-mind is licensed under MIT and zotero-AI-Butler under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between obsidian-mind and zotero-AI-Butler?
obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript and zotero-AI-Butler in TypeScript. 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 zotero-AI-Butler?
Choose obsidian-mind if you want the larger community (4,653 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zotero-AI-Butler if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.