head to head · open source
Zotero vs obsidian-mind
Zotero has 15,855 GitHub stars, 1,174 forks, 1,600 open issues and last shipped yesterday. obsidian-mind has 5,490 stars, 611 forks, 7 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. Zotero leads on adoption by 189% (15,855 vs 5,490 stars). Zotero is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; obsidian-mind is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zotero has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, obsidian-mind 11%. Zotero 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
| Zotero | obsidian-mind | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 5.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-05 | 2026-10-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 611 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zotero if
- You weight community size — 16K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick obsidian-mind if
- You want the obsidian-mind feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and obsidian-mind fits your workflow better
About Zotero
Zotero ====== Zotero is a free, easy to use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. Please post feature requests or bug reports to the Zotero Forums. If you're having trouble with Zotero, see Getting Help. For more information on how to use this source code, see the Zotero documentation.
read the full Zotero overview →
About obsidian-mind
🌐 English 日本語 中文 한국어 Obsidian Mind An Obsidian vault that gives AI coding agents persistent memory. Built for Claude Code, with working hooks for Codex CLI and Gemini CLI. Start a session, talk about your day, and the agent handles the rest — notes, links, indexes, performance tracking. Every conversation builds on the last. 🔴 The Problem AI coding agents are powerful, but they forget. Every session starts from zero — no context on your goals, your team, your patterns, your wins. You re explain the same things. You lose decisions made three conversations ago. The knowledge never compounds. 🟢 The Solution Give…
read the full obsidian-mind overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zotero or obsidian-mind more popular?
Zotero has 15,855 GitHub stars and obsidian-mind has 5,490. Zotero has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zotero and obsidian-mind free?
Both are open source. Zotero has no licence declared in this registry, and obsidian-mind is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zotero and obsidian-mind?
Zotero is written in JavaScript and obsidian-mind 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, Zotero or obsidian-mind?
Choose Zotero if you want the larger community (15,855 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose obsidian-mind if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.