head to head · open source
silverbullet vs iwe
silverbullet has 6,126 GitHub stars, 485 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. iwe has 1,703 stars, 86 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. silverbullet leads on adoption by 260% (6,126 vs 1,703 stars). silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT; iwe is written in Rust under Apache-2.0. silverbullet has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, iwe 5%. 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 | iwe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.1K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-21 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 485 | ⑂ 86 |
| 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 iwe if
- You want the iwe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and iwe 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 iwe
IWE is a local first Rust tool that turns a directory of Markdown files into a knowledge graph, serving the same notes to your editor through a language server and to AI agents through a CLI and MCP server — it is built for anyone who wants database style queries over plain notes they continue to own.
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Frequently asked questions
Is silverbullet or iwe more popular?
silverbullet has 6,126 GitHub stars and iwe has 1,703. silverbullet has the larger community by that measure.
Are silverbullet and iwe free?
Both are open source. silverbullet is licensed under MIT and iwe under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between silverbullet and iwe?
silverbullet is written in TypeScript and iwe in Rust. 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 iwe?
Choose silverbullet if you want the larger community (6,126 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose iwe if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.