head to head · open source
wiki vs liam
wiki has 28,938 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped today. liam has 5,116 stars, 239 forks, 29 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiki leads on adoption by 466% (28,938 vs 5,116 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; liam is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, liam 5%. wiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, nodejs), 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 | liam | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Vue | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 239 |
| 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 liam if
- You want the liam 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 liam 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 liam
Liam is an open source TypeScript tool that automatically generates beautiful, interactive ER diagrams from an existing database schema, built for developers and teams who need to read, document, and share the structure of a database without drawing diagrams by hand.
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or liam more popular?
wiki has 28,938 GitHub stars and liam has 5,116. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and liam free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and liam under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and liam?
wiki is written in Vue and liam 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 liam?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,938 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose liam if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.