head to head · open source
Zotero vs silverbullet
Zotero has 15,847 GitHub stars, 1,174 forks, 1,600 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. silverbullet has 6,456 stars, 528 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Zotero leads on adoption by 145% (15,847 vs 6,456 stars). Zotero is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence; silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT. Zotero has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, silverbullet 8%. 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 | silverbullet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 16K | ★ 6.5K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 528 |
| 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 silverbullet if
- You want the silverbullet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and silverbullet 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 silverbullet
SilverBullet SilverBullet is a Programmable, Private, Browser based, Open Source, Self Hosted, Personal Knowledge Database — a fancy term for a "notes app on steroids". Yowza! That surely is a lot of adjectives to describe a browser based Markdown editor programmable with Lua. Let’s get more specific. SilverBullet combines a clean live preview editor with wiki style linking, a built in database and query language, and a fully integrated Space Lua scripting environment, turning your notes into a programmable system that grows with you. In SilverBullet you keep your content as a collection of Markdown Pages…
read the full silverbullet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Zotero or silverbullet more popular?
Zotero has 15,847 GitHub stars and silverbullet has 6,456. Zotero has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zotero and silverbullet free?
Both are open source. Zotero has no licence declared in this registry, and silverbullet is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Zotero and silverbullet?
Zotero is written in JavaScript and silverbullet 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 silverbullet?
Choose Zotero if you want the larger community (15,847 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose silverbullet if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.