head to head · open source
zk vs poznote
zk has 2,863 GitHub stars, 199 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. poznote has 977 stars, 48 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zk leads on adoption by 193% (2,863 vs 977 stars). zk is written in Go under GPL-3.0; poznote is written in JavaScript under MIT. zk has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, poznote 5%. poznote was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (note-taking, 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
| zk | poznote | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 2.9K | ★ 977 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-31 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 199 | ⑂ 48 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick zk if
- You weight community size — 2.9K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick poznote if
- You want the poznote feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and poznote fits your workflow better
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…
About poznote
English · Français · Deutsch · Español · Português · Русский · 简体中文 Powerful note taking without the hassle. A free, self hosted, open source alternative to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, or OneNote. Features Discover all the features here. Screenshots See all the screenshots here. Demo Login : poznote Password : poznote They talk about Poznote Discord Join the community to ask questions, share feedback or follow the development: Table of content Install Access Change Settings Update application Authentication App Passwords Note types Snapshots Personalization Multi users Activity Log Webhooks Git Synchronization…
read the full poznote overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is zk or poznote more popular?
zk has 2,863 GitHub stars and poznote has 977. zk has the larger community by that measure.
Are zk and poznote free?
Both are open source. zk is licensed under GPL-3.0 and poznote under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between zk and poznote?
zk is written in Go and poznote 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, zk or poznote?
Choose zk if you want the larger community (2,863 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose poznote if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.