head to head · open source
Khoj vs QOwnNotes
Khoj has 37,970 GitHub stars, 2,530 forks, 148 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. QOwnNotes has 5,942 stars, 498 forks, 63 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Khoj leads on adoption by 539% (37,970 vs 5,942 stars). Khoj is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; QOwnNotes is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. Khoj has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, QOwnNotes 8%. QOwnNotes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (llm), 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
| Khoj | QOwnNotes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 38K | ★ 5.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-08-02 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.5K | ⑂ 498 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Khoj if
- You weight community size — 38K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick QOwnNotes if
- You want the QOwnNotes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and QOwnNotes fits your workflow better
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…
About QOwnNotes
QOwnNotes Installation Changelog Issues Shortcuts Documentation Privacy Policy Screenshots Nextcloud API App ownCloud API App Matrix room Telegram Group IRC Chat Mastodon QOwnNotes Web Companion Firefox extension QOwnNotes Web Companion Chrome extension QOwnNotes Web App QOwnNotes Tor Hidden Service QOwnNotes is the open source notepad with Markdown support and todo list manager for GNU/Linux , macOS and Windows , that works together with Nextcloud Notes and ownCloud Notes . You are able to write down your thoughts with QOwnNotes and edit or search for them later from your mobile device , like with QOwnNotes…
read the full QOwnNotes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Khoj or QOwnNotes more popular?
Khoj has 37,970 GitHub stars and QOwnNotes has 5,942. Khoj has the larger community by that measure.
Are Khoj and QOwnNotes free?
Both are open source. Khoj is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and QOwnNotes under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Khoj and QOwnNotes?
Khoj is written in Python and QOwnNotes in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Khoj or QOwnNotes?
Choose Khoj if you want the larger community (37,970 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose QOwnNotes if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.