head to head · open source
wiki vs zeal
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zeal has 12,796 stars, 844 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. wiki leads on adoption by 126% (28,937 vs 12,796 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; zeal is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, zeal 7%. 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.
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Side by side
| wiki | zeal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 13K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Vue | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 844 |
| 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 zeal if
- You want the zeal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and zeal 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 zeal
Zeal is an offline documentation browser: a personal reference library of API and language documentation that is searchable in an instant and available without a connection, built in C++ on Qt and released under the GPL 3.0.
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or zeal more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and zeal has 12,796. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and zeal free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and zeal under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and zeal?
wiki is written in Vue and zeal in C++. 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 zeal?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose zeal if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.