head to head · open source
Open-Notebook vs Tolaria
Open-Notebook has 39,087 GitHub stars, 4,527 forks, 110 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. Tolaria has 19,807 stars, 1,381 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Open-Notebook leads on adoption by 97% (39,087 vs 19,807 stars). Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript under MIT; Tolaria is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Open-Notebook has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, Tolaria 7%. Tolaria was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | Tolaria | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 20K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.5K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Tolaria if
- You want the Tolaria 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 Tolaria 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 Tolaria
Tolaria is an open source desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0. It manages markdown knowledge bases as local files, with each vault stored as a Git repository. The project lives in the personal knowledge management ecosystem as a local first, Git native tool for second brains, company documentation used as AI context, and assistant memory or procedures.
read the full Tolaria overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Open-Notebook or Tolaria more popular?
Open-Notebook has 39,087 GitHub stars and Tolaria has 19,807. Open-Notebook has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open-Notebook and Tolaria free?
Both are open source. Open-Notebook is licensed under MIT and Tolaria under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Open-Notebook and Tolaria?
Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript and Tolaria 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, Open-Notebook or Tolaria?
Choose Open-Notebook if you want the larger community (39,087 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tolaria if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.