head to head · open source
wiki vs NoteDiscovery
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. NoteDiscovery has 2,807 stars, 233 forks, 4 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiki leads on adoption by 931% (28,937 vs 2,807 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; NoteDiscovery is written in JavaScript under MIT. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, NoteDiscovery 8%. NoteDiscovery 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 | NoteDiscovery | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Vue | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 233 |
| 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 NoteDiscovery if
- You want the NoteDiscovery feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and NoteDiscovery 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 NoteDiscovery
NoteDiscovery is a lightweight, self hosted note taking and knowledge base application, written in JavaScript and released under the MIT licence, that stores every note as a plain markdown file in folders on your own server and is aimed at privacy conscious individuals, developers, knowledge workers, and teams who want to own their data.
read the full NoteDiscovery overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or NoteDiscovery more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and NoteDiscovery has 2,807. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and NoteDiscovery free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and NoteDiscovery under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and NoteDiscovery?
wiki is written in Vue and NoteDiscovery in JavaScript. 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 NoteDiscovery?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose NoteDiscovery if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.