head to head · open source
silverbullet vs gtoolkit
silverbullet has 6,126 GitHub stars, 485 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gtoolkit has 1,572 stars, 69 forks, 332 open issues and last shipped yesterday. silverbullet leads on adoption by 290% (6,126 vs 1,572 stars). silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT; gtoolkit is written in Smalltalk under MIT. silverbullet has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, gtoolkit 4%. gtoolkit was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (knowledge-management), 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 | gtoolkit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Smalltalk |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-21 |
| Forks | ⑂ 485 | ⑂ 69 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick silverbullet if
- You weight community size — 6.1K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gtoolkit if
- You want the gtoolkit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Smalltalk
- You evaluated both and gtoolkit 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 gtoolkit
Glamorous Toolkit is the Moldable Development Environment, an MIT licensed Smalltalk environment that replaces code reading with deterministic contextual tools, aimed at developers and teams who need to make large systems — and the AI generated code flowing into them — explainable, and who are willing to program the environment itself.
read the full gtoolkit overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is silverbullet or gtoolkit more popular?
silverbullet has 6,126 GitHub stars and gtoolkit has 1,572. silverbullet has the larger community by that measure.
Are silverbullet and gtoolkit free?
Both are open source. silverbullet is licensed under MIT and gtoolkit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between silverbullet and gtoolkit?
silverbullet is written in TypeScript and gtoolkit in Smalltalk. 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 gtoolkit?
Choose silverbullet if you want the larger community (6,126 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gtoolkit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.