head to head · open source
wiki vs arscontexta
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. arscontexta has 3,485 stars, 226 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. wiki leads on adoption by 730% (28,937 vs 3,485 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; arscontexta is written in Shell under MIT. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, arscontexta 6%. wiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| wiki | arscontexta | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Vue | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-02-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 226 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wiki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick arscontexta if
- You want the arscontexta feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and arscontexta fits your workflow better
About wiki
Wiki.js is a modern, lightweight wiki application built on NodeJS and distributed as open source under the AGPL 3.0 licence, aimed at teams and organisations that want to publish and maintain their own documentation and knowledge base rather than renting a hosted one.
About arscontexta
Ars Contexta is an MIT licensed Claude Code plugin that turns a short conversation about how you think and work into a complete, individualized second brain made of plain markdown files you own.
read the full arscontexta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or arscontexta more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and arscontexta has 3,485. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and arscontexta free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and arscontexta under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and arscontexta?
wiki is written in Vue and arscontexta in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wiki or arscontexta?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose arscontexta if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.