head to head · open source
silverbullet vs OpenWiki
silverbullet has 6,479 GitHub stars, 530 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. OpenWiki has 643 stars, 104 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. silverbullet leads on adoption by 908% (6,479 vs 643 stars). silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT; OpenWiki is written in Rust under MIT. silverbullet has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, OpenWiki 16%. silverbullet 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 | OpenWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.5K | ★ 643 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-06 | 2026-10-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 530 | ⑂ 104 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick silverbullet if
- You weight community size — 6.5K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick OpenWiki if
- You want the OpenWiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and OpenWiki fits your workflow better
About silverbullet
SilverBullet SilverBullet is a Programmable, Private, Browser based, Open Source, Self Hosted, Personal Knowledge Database — a fancy term for a "notes app on steroids". Yowza! That surely is a lot of adjectives to describe a browser based Markdown editor programmable with Lua. Let’s get more specific. SilverBullet combines a clean live preview editor with wiki style linking, a built in database and query language, and a fully integrated Space Lua scripting environment, turning your notes into a programmable system that grows with you. In SilverBullet you keep your content as a collection of Markdown Pages…
read the full silverbullet overview →
About OpenWiki
Copy anything → popup appears on desktop → choose to keep → AI organizes it into a knowledge base You decide what to keep. AI makes sense of it. Privacy first — all data stored in local SQLite database. Network transparency: URL reading can send the full URL to Jina Reader, and the Chinese UI can send foreign language page text to Google Translate. Both are enabled by default for compatibility and can be disabled independently in Settings. Platform specific readers may still contact the source platform or its API. 🌐 Website · 中文文档 Screenshots Features 📋 Capture Popup A popup appears on your desktop when you…
read the full OpenWiki overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is silverbullet or OpenWiki more popular?
silverbullet has 6,479 GitHub stars and OpenWiki has 643. silverbullet has the larger community by that measure.
Are silverbullet and OpenWiki free?
Both are open source. silverbullet is licensed under MIT and OpenWiki under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between silverbullet and OpenWiki?
silverbullet is written in TypeScript and OpenWiki 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 OpenWiki?
Choose silverbullet if you want the larger community (6,479 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose OpenWiki if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.