head to head · open source
wiki vs nb
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars, 3,335 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nb has 8,462 stars, 258 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiki leads on adoption by 244% (29,128 vs 8,462 stars). wiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; nb is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, nb 3%. wiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (git, 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 | nb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 258 |
| 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 nb if
- You want the nb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and nb 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 nb
nb is a command line and local web note‑taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application with: plain text data storage, encryption, filtering, pinning, tagging, and search, Git backed versioning and syncing, Pandoc backed conversion, [[wiki style linking]] , terminal and GUI web browsing, inline images, todos with tasks, global and local notebooks, organization with folders, customizable color themes, extensibility through plugins, and more, in a single portable script. nb creates notes in text based formats like Markdown, Org, LaTeX, and AsciiDoc, can work with files in any format, can import and…
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or nb more popular?
wiki has 29,128 GitHub stars and nb has 8,462. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and nb free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and nb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and nb?
wiki is written in TypeScript and nb 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 nb?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (29,128 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose nb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.