head to head · open source
deepwiki-open vs zk
deepwiki-open has 18,350 GitHub stars, 2,025 forks, 269 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. zk has 2,863 stars, 199 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. deepwiki-open leads on adoption by 541% (18,350 vs 2,863 stars). deepwiki-open is written in Python under MIT; zk is written in Go under GPL-3.0. deepwiki-open has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, zk 7%. zk was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (wiki), 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
| deepwiki-open | zk | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 18K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | Go |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.0K | ⑂ 199 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick deepwiki-open if
- You weight community size — 18K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zk if
- You want the zk feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and zk fits your workflow better
About deepwiki-open
DeepWiki Open (Grok Wiki) DeepWiki is my own implementation attempt of DeepWiki, automatically creates beautiful, interactive wikis for any GitHub, GitLab, or BitBucket repository! Just enter a repo name, and DeepWiki will: 1. Analyze the code structure 2. Generate comprehensive documentation 3. Create visual diagrams to explain how everything works 4. Organize it all into an easy to navigate wiki 5. Generate codemap for code centric guided tours English 简体中文 繁體中文 日本語 Español 한국어 Tiếng Việt Português Brasileiro Français Русский Deepwiki Open 2.0 (Grok Wiki is now live) Download at 🤝 Contributing Contributions…
read the full deepwiki-open overview →
About zk
A plain text note taking assistant Description zk is a command line tool helping you to maintain a plain text Zettelkasten or personal wiki. Looking for a quick usage example? Or want to see it in action? Checkout Shivan's video, Note taking System ALL Programmers Should Consider . Join us on Matrix for general, support and development discussion: \ zk org:pub.solar. Highlights Creating notes from templates Advanced search and filtering capabilities including tags, links and mentions Integration with your favorite editors: Any LSP compatible editor zk emacs for Emacs zk nvim for Neovim 0.8+ zk vscode for Visual…
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Frequently asked questions
Is deepwiki-open or zk more popular?
deepwiki-open has 18,350 GitHub stars and zk has 2,863. deepwiki-open has the larger community by that measure.
Are deepwiki-open and zk free?
Both are open source. deepwiki-open is licensed under MIT and zk under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between deepwiki-open and zk?
deepwiki-open is written in Python and zk in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, deepwiki-open or zk?
Choose deepwiki-open if you want the larger community (18,350 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zk if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.