head to head · open source
Open-Notebook vs dstask
Open-Notebook has 39,300 GitHub stars, 4,556 forks, 110 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. dstask has 1,204 stars, 68 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. Open-Notebook leads on adoption by 3,164% (39,300 vs 1,204 stars). Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript under MIT; dstask is written in Go under MIT. Open-Notebook has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, dstask 6%. Open-Notebook was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| Open-Notebook | dstask | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.6K | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open-Notebook if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the MIT 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 Open-Notebook
Open Notebook is an open source, privacy focused research notebook that replicates and extends Google’s Notebook LM functionality. It runs locally or self hosted, letting users manage AI powered research workflows without surrendering data to cloud providers. Built with TypeScript, Next.js, React, SurrealDB, and LangChain, it targets researchers, students, and knowledge workers seeking control over their data and tools.
read the full Open-Notebook overview →
About dstask
dstask is a personal, terminal based task and note manager that keeps every task in a Git repository, built for developers and command line users who want Taskwarrior style tracking without operating a sync server.
read the full dstask overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open-Notebook or dstask more popular?
Open-Notebook has 39,300 GitHub stars and dstask has 1,204. Open-Notebook has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open-Notebook and dstask free?
Both are open source. Open-Notebook is licensed under MIT and dstask under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Open-Notebook and dstask?
Open-Notebook 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, Open-Notebook or dstask?
Choose Open-Notebook if you want the larger community (39,300 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose dstask if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.