head to head · open source
Open-Notebook vs Khoj
Open-Notebook has 41,377 GitHub stars, 4,762 forks, 110 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Khoj has 37,946 stars, 2,529 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Open-Notebook leads on adoption by 9% (41,377 vs 37,946 stars). Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript under MIT; Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Open-Notebook has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Khoj 7%. 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 (assistant), 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 | Khoj | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 38K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-08-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.8K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open-Notebook if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Khoj if
- You want the Khoj feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Khoj fits your workflow better
About Open-Notebook
[![Forks][forks shield]][forks url] [![Stargazers][stars shield]][stars url] [![Issues][issues shield]][issues url] [![MIT License][license shield]][license url] Open Notebook An open source, privacy focused alternative to Google's Notebook LM! Join our Discord server for help, to share workflow ideas, and suggest features! Checkout our website » Follow @lfnovo on X for updates 📚 Get Started · 📖 User Guide · ✨ Features · 🚀 Deploy Deutsch Español français 日本語 한국어 Português Русский 中文 A private, multi model, 100% local, full featured alternative to Notebook LM In a world dominated by Artificial Intelligence…
read the full Open-Notebook overview →
About Khoj
Your AI second brain 📑 Docs • 🌐 Web • 🔥 App • 💬 Discord • ✍🏽 Blog 🎁 New Meet 🌶️ Pipali our open source AI coworker that runs on your computer. Read about Khoj's excellent performance on modern retrieval and reasoning benchmarks. Overview Khoj is a personal AI app to extend your capabilities. It smoothly scales up from an on device personal AI to a cloud scale enterprise AI. Chat with any local or online LLM (e.g llama3, qwen, gemma, mistral, gpt, claude, gemini, deepseek). Get answers from the internet and your docs (including image, pdf, markdown, org mode, word, notion files). Access it from your…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open-Notebook or Khoj more popular?
Open-Notebook has 41,377 GitHub stars and Khoj has 37,946. Open-Notebook has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open-Notebook and Khoj free?
Both are open source. Open-Notebook is licensed under MIT and Khoj under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Open-Notebook and Khoj?
Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript and Khoj 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, Open-Notebook or Khoj?
Choose Open-Notebook if you want the larger community (41,377 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Khoj if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.