head to head · open source
BookStack vs poznote
BookStack has 19,125 GitHub stars, 2,435 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. poznote has 980 stars, 48 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BookStack leads on adoption by 1,852% (19,125 vs 980 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; poznote is written in JavaScript under MIT. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, poznote 5%. poznote was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, wiki), 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
| BookStack | poznote | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 980 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 48 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BookStack if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick poznote if
- You want the poznote feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and poznote fits your workflow better
About BookStack
BookStack A platform for storing and organising information and documentation. Details for BookStack can be found on the official website at Installation Instructions Documentation Demo Instance Screenshots BookStack Blog Issue List Community Discussions Support Options 📚 Project Definition BookStack is an opinionated documentation platform that provides a pleasant and simple out of the box experience. New users to an instance should find the experience intuitive and only basic word processing skills should be required to get involved in creating content on BookStack. The platform should provide advanced power…
read the full BookStack overview →
About poznote
English · Français · Deutsch · Español · Português · Русский · 简体中文 Powerful note taking without the hassle. A free, self hosted, open source alternative to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, or OneNote. Features Discover all the features here. Screenshots See all the screenshots here. Demo Login : poznote Password : poznote They talk about Poznote Discord Join the community to ask questions, share feedback or follow the development: Table of content Install Access Change Settings Update application Authentication App Passwords Note types Snapshots Personalization Multi users Activity Log Webhooks Git Synchronization…
read the full poznote overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or poznote more popular?
BookStack has 19,125 GitHub stars and poznote has 980. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and poznote free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and poznote under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and poznote?
BookStack is written in PHP and poznote in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BookStack or poznote?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,125 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose poznote if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.