head to head · open source
silverbullet vs brain.md
silverbullet has 6,155 GitHub stars, 488 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. brain.md has 553 stars, 51 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. silverbullet leads on adoption by 1,013% (6,155 vs 553 stars). silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT; brain.md is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. silverbullet has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, brain.md 9%. silverbullet was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (knowledge-management, markdown), 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
| silverbullet | brain.md | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.2K | ★ 553 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-24 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 488 | ⑂ 51 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick silverbullet if
- You weight community size — 6.2K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick brain.md if
- You want the brain.md feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and brain.md fits your workflow better
About silverbullet
SilverBullet is an open source, self hosted, browser based personal knowledge database that stores notes as Markdown pages and makes them programmable with Space Lua, aimed at individual knowledge workers who want a notes app they can script rather than merely configure.
read the full silverbullet overview →
About brain.md
brain.md is an open, agent agnostic, file based memory layer for coding agents such as Claude Code and Codex, distributed as a zero dependency JavaScript CLI under the Apache 2.0 licence, and it is aimed at developers and teams who want a project's durable decisions, requirements and constraints to survive beyond a single chat session.
read the full brain.md overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is silverbullet or brain.md more popular?
silverbullet has 6,155 GitHub stars and brain.md has 553. silverbullet has the larger community by that measure.
Are silverbullet and brain.md free?
Both are open source. silverbullet is licensed under MIT and brain.md under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between silverbullet and brain.md?
silverbullet is written in TypeScript and brain.md 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, silverbullet or brain.md?
Choose silverbullet if you want the larger community (6,155 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose brain.md if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.