head to head · open source
Wekan vs freeplane
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars, 3,000 forks, 165 open issues and last shipped yesterday. freeplane has 4,362 stars, 498 forks, 453 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Wekan leads on adoption by 383% (21,089 vs 4,362 stars). Wekan is written in JavaScript under MIT; freeplane is written in Java under GPL-2.0. Wekan has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, freeplane 11%. freeplane 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
| Wekan | freeplane | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | Java |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 498 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Wekan if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freeplane if
- You want the freeplane feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and freeplane fits your workflow better
About Wekan
Wekan is an open source collaborative kanban board application written in JavaScript and built with Meteor. It is licensed under the MIT license and is positioned as a free and open source alternative to Jira and Monday.com. The project lives in the self hosted business software and project management ecosystem.
read the full Wekan overview →
About freeplane
Freeplane is a free and open source desktop application for mind mapping, concept mapping and information mapping, written in Java with OSGi and Java Swing. It lives in the Java desktop ecosystem and is distributed under the GPL 2.0 license, with source hosted on GitHub and binary downloads published through SourceForge. The project has been under development for roughly 14 years and sits in the business software category of project and work management tools.
read the full freeplane overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Wekan or freeplane more popular?
Wekan has 21,089 GitHub stars and freeplane has 4,362. Wekan has the larger community by that measure.
Are Wekan and freeplane free?
Both are open source. Wekan is licensed under MIT and freeplane under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Wekan and freeplane?
Wekan is written in JavaScript and freeplane in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Wekan or freeplane?
Choose Wekan if you want the larger community (21,089 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose freeplane if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.