head to head · open source
wiki vs cheat
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars, 3,335 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. cheat has 13,486 stars, 851 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. wiki leads on adoption by 116% (29,128 vs 13,486 stars). wiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; cheat is written in Go under MIT. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, cheat 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 (documentation), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| wiki | cheat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 13K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 851 |
| 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 TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick cheat if
- You want the cheat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cheat fits your workflow better
About wiki
A modern, lightweight and powerful wiki app built on NodeJS Official Website Documentation Requirements Installation Demo Changelog Feature Requests Chat with us on Discord Translations (We need your help!) Special Thanks Contribute Follow our Twitter feed to learn about upcoming updates and new releases! Donate Wiki.js is an open source project that has been made possible due to the generous contributions by community backers. If you are interested in supporting this project, please consider becoming a sponsor, becoming a patron, donating to our OpenCollective, via Paypal or via Ethereum (
About cheat
cheat cheat allows you to create and view interactive cheatsheets on the command line. It was designed to help remind \ nix system administrators of options for commands that they use frequently, but not frequently enough to remember. Use cheat with [cheatsheets][]. Example The next time you're forced to disarm a nuclear weapon without consulting Google, you may run: You will be presented with a cheatsheet resembling the following: Installing For installation and configuration instructions, see [INSTALLING.md][]. Usage To view a cheatsheet: To edit a cheatsheet: To view the configured cheatpaths: To list all…
read the full cheat overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Documentation & Knowledge Base projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Documentation & Knowledge Base field.
Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or cheat more popular?
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars and cheat has 13,486. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and cheat free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and cheat under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and cheat?
wiki is written in TypeScript and cheat in Go. 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 cheat?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (29,128 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose cheat if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.