head to head · open source
Outline vs Khoj
Outline has 41,145 GitHub stars, 3,650 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Khoj has 37,946 stars, 2,529 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Outline leads on adoption by 8% (41,145 vs 37,946 stars). Outline is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. Outline has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Khoj 7%. Outline 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
| Outline | Khoj | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 41K | ★ 38K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-08-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.6K | ⑂ 2.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Outline if
- You weight community size — 41K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other 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 Outline
A fast, collaborative, knowledge base for your team built using React and Node.js. Try out Outline using our hosted version at www.getoutline.com . This is the source code that runs Outline and all the associated services. If you want to use Outline then you don't need to run this code, A hosted version of the app is offered at getoutline.com. You can also find documentation on using Outline in our guide. If you'd like to run your own copy of Outline or contribute to development then this is the place for you. Installation Please see the documentation for running your own copy of Outline in a production…
read the full Outline 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 Outline or Khoj more popular?
Outline has 41,145 GitHub stars and Khoj has 37,946. Outline has the larger community by that measure.
Are Outline and Khoj free?
Both are open source. Outline has no licence declared in this registry, and Khoj is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Outline and Khoj?
Outline 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, Outline or Khoj?
Choose Outline if you want the larger community (41,145 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Khoj if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.