head to head · open source
wiki vs fern
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. fern has 3,782 stars, 345 forks, 343 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiki leads on adoption by 665% (28,937 vs 3,782 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; fern is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, fern 9%. fern 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
| wiki | fern | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Vue | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 345 |
| 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 fern if
- You want the fern feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and fern 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 fern
Fern is an Apache 2.0 TypeScript project in the API documentation and SDK generation ecosystem. It takes API definitions as input and produces client SDKs and developer documentation. The project centers on the fern api CLI, published on npm, and supports OpenAPI, AsyncAPI, Protobuf, and OpenRPC.
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or fern more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and fern has 3,782. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and fern free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and fern under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and fern?
wiki is written in Vue and fern 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, wiki or fern?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose fern if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.