head to head · open source
Tolaria vs silverbullet
Tolaria has 20,450 GitHub stars, 1,412 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped yesterday. silverbullet has 6,456 stars, 528 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Tolaria leads on adoption by 217% (20,450 vs 6,456 stars). Tolaria is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT. Tolaria has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, silverbullet 8%. Tolaria was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Tolaria | silverbullet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 528 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Tolaria if
- You weight community size — 20K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick silverbullet if
- You want the silverbullet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and silverbullet fits your workflow better
About Tolaria
💧 Tolaria Tolaria is a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux for managing markdown knowledge bases . People use it for a variety of use cases: Operate second brains and personal knowledge Organize company docs as context for AI Store OpenClaw/assistants memory and procedures Personally, I use it to run my life (hey 👋 Luca here). I have a massive workspace of 10,000+ notes, which are the result of my Refactoring work + a ton of personal journaling and second braining . Sponsors Tolaria is supported by a small panel of tools that help keep the project healthy, tested, and ready for AI assisted development. I…
read the full Tolaria overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tolaria or silverbullet more popular?
Tolaria has 20,450 GitHub stars and silverbullet has 6,456. Tolaria has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tolaria and silverbullet free?
Both are open source. Tolaria is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and silverbullet under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tolaria and silverbullet?
Tolaria is written in TypeScript and silverbullet in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Tolaria or silverbullet?
Choose Tolaria if you want the larger community (20,450 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose silverbullet if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.