head to head · open source
saber vs dstask
saber has 4,821 GitHub stars, 374 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. dstask has 1,204 stars, 68 forks, 44 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. saber leads on adoption by 300% (4,821 vs 1,204 stars). saber is written in Dart under GPL-3.0; dstask is written in Go under MIT. saber has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, dstask 6%. saber was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (notes, notes-app), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| saber | dstask | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.8K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Dart | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-05-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 374 | ⑂ 68 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick saber if
- You weight community size — 4.8K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick dstask if
- You want the dstask feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and dstask fits your workflow better
About saber
Saber is a cross platform, open source handwriting notes app for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows, built for students, professionals and anyone else who writes by hand on a screen and wants their notes to stay on their own terms.
read the full saber overview →
About dstask
dstask is a personal, terminal based task and note manager that keeps every task in a Git repository, built for developers and command line users who want Taskwarrior style tracking without operating a sync server.
read the full dstask overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Note Taking & Knowledge Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Note Taking & Knowledge Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is saber or dstask more popular?
saber has 4,821 GitHub stars and dstask has 1,204. saber has the larger community by that measure.
Are saber and dstask free?
Both are open source. saber is licensed under GPL-3.0 and dstask under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between saber and dstask?
saber is written in Dart and dstask in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, saber or dstask?
Choose saber if you want the larger community (4,821 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose dstask if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.