head to head · open source
Joplin vs zotero-AI-Butler
Joplin has 56,544 GitHub stars, 6,314 forks, 648 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zotero-AI-Butler has 1,768 stars, 98 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Joplin leads on adoption by 3,098% (56,544 vs 1,768 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; zotero-AI-Butler is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, zotero-AI-Butler 6%. Joplin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Joplin | zotero-AI-Butler | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 1.8K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-30 | 2026-09-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.3K | ⑂ 98 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Joplin if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick zotero-AI-Butler if
- You want the zotero-AI-Butler feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and zotero-AI-Butler fits your workflow better
About Joplin
Joplin is a free, open source, privacy focused note taking and to do application that keeps notes as Markdown on your own device and synchronises them, end to end encrypted, across Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
read the full Joplin overview →
About zotero-AI-Butler
zotero AI Butler is a free, open source Zotero plugin written in TypeScript and licensed under AGPL 3.0 that calls large language models to read the PDFs already sitting in a Zotero library and writes the results back as native Zotero notes, built for researchers, students, and anyone whose "read later" pile has outgrown their reading time.
read the full zotero-AI-Butler overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or zotero-AI-Butler more popular?
Joplin has 56,544 GitHub stars and zotero-AI-Butler has 1,768. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and zotero-AI-Butler free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and zotero-AI-Butler is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and zotero-AI-Butler?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and zotero-AI-Butler in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Joplin or zotero-AI-Butler?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,544 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose zotero-AI-Butler if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.