head to head · open source
Tolaria vs MiaoYan
Tolaria has 19,834 GitHub stars, 1,380 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. MiaoYan has 8,647 stars, 512 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. Tolaria leads on adoption by 129% (19,834 vs 8,647 stars). Tolaria is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. Tolaria has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, MiaoYan 6%. MiaoYan 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 | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 20K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 512 |
| 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 MiaoYan if
- You want the MiaoYan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and MiaoYan fits your workflow better
About Tolaria
Tolaria is an open source desktop application for macOS, Windows, and Linux, written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0. It manages markdown knowledge bases as local files, with each vault stored as a Git repository. The project lives in the personal knowledge management ecosystem as a local first, Git native tool for second brains, company documentation used as AI context, and assistant memory or procedures.
read the full Tolaria overview →
About MiaoYan
MiaoYan is a lightweight, local first Markdown note taking app for macOS, written in Swift and released under the MIT licence, aimed at people who want fast plain text notes on their own disk without accounts, telemetry, or a hosted service.
read the full MiaoYan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Tolaria or MiaoYan more popular?
Tolaria has 19,834 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,647. Tolaria has the larger community by that measure.
Are Tolaria and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. Tolaria is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MiaoYan under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Tolaria and MiaoYan?
Tolaria is written in TypeScript and MiaoYan in Swift. 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 MiaoYan?
Choose Tolaria if you want the larger community (19,834 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.