head to head · open source
Open-Notebook vs zotero-AI-Butler
Open-Notebook has 39,661 GitHub stars, 4,592 forks, 110 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. zotero-AI-Butler has 1,768 stars, 98 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Open-Notebook leads on adoption by 2,143% (39,661 vs 1,768 stars). Open-Notebook is written in TypeScript under MIT; zotero-AI-Butler is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Open-Notebook has attracted 12% 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.
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 | zotero-AI-Butler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-27 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.6K | ⑂ 98 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Open-Notebook if
- You weight community size — 40K 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 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 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 Open-Notebook or zotero-AI-Butler more popular?
Open-Notebook has 39,661 GitHub stars and zotero-AI-Butler has 1,768. Open-Notebook has the larger community by that measure.
Are Open-Notebook and zotero-AI-Butler free?
Both are open source. Open-Notebook is licensed under MIT and zotero-AI-Butler under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Open-Notebook and zotero-AI-Butler?
Open-Notebook 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, Open-Notebook or zotero-AI-Butler?
Choose Open-Notebook if you want the larger community (39,661 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.