Open-source note-taking apps in 2026
30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. AppFlowy leads with 78k stars, ahead of AFFiNE. 30 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: AGPL-3.0 (9), MIT (9) and GPL-3.0 (5). Commercial note-taking apps are listed separately.
All open-source note-taking apps, ranked
Complete systems you can adopt 25
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1
AppFlowy AppFlowy-IO
Bring projects, wikis, and teams together with AI. AppFlowy is the AI collaborative workspace where you achieve more without losing control of your data. The leading open source Notion alternative.
Complete system Usable You want a Notion alternative that keeps data local or on your own server.
★ 78k AGPL-3.0 Dart Active, pushed today -
2
AFFiNE toeverything
There can be more than Notion and Miro. AFFiNE(pronounced [ə‘fain]) is a next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting and creating all together. Privacy first, open-source, customizable and ready to use.
Complete system Usable You want an open alternative to Notion that also does visual whiteboarding and can run offline.
★ 74k See repository TypeScript Active, pushed today -
3
Memos usememos
Memos is an open-source, self-hosted note-taking app that brings your everyday thoughts together in a personal timeline. Your data stays yours, and you choose what to keep private or share.
Complete system Production-ready You want a quick place to jot thoughts and links on your own server.
★ 64k MIT Go Active, pushed today -
4
Joplin laurent22
Joplin - the privacy-focused note taking app with sync capabilities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
Complete system Production-ready You want an Evernote replacement you control, across all your devices.
★ 57k See repository TypeScript Active, pushed today -
5
SiYuan siyuan-note
An open-source, privacy-first, self-hosted knowledge workspace where humans and AI agents work together 开源、隐私优先、自托管的知识工作空间，让人与智能体在此协作
Complete system Production-ready You want Logseq or Roam-style block linking with richer document editing.
★ 47k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
6
Trilium TriliumNext
Build your personal knowledge base with Trilium Notes
Complete system Usable You want a deep, scriptable personal knowledge base and like tree-structured notes.
★ 39k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
7
Notesnook streetwriters
A fully open source & end-to-end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote.
Complete system Production-ready Privacy matters most and you want encrypted notes synced across devices.
★ 15k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
8
VNote vnotex
A pleasant note-taking platform with native speed, majoring in Markdown, MindMap, Typst, and plain text.
Complete system Usable You want a fast desktop Markdown notes app rather than an Electron one.
★ 13k LGPL-3.0 C++ Active, pushed today -
9
NoteGen codexu
Capture first. Organize later. A local-first Markdown app that turns scattered records into clear notes with AI.
Complete system Usable You collect scattered snippets during the day and want AI to draft notes from them.
★ 13k GPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
10
Rnote flxzt
Sketch and take handwritten notes.
Complete system Usable You take handwritten notes on a Linux laptop or tablet.
★ 12k GPL-3.0 Rust Active, pushed yesterday -
11
MiaoYan tw93
⛷ A quiet, local-first Markdown writing app for Mac, to help you write great sentences.
Complete system Usable You want a quiet, distraction-free Markdown editor on macOS.
★ 8.7k MIT Swift Active, pushed today -
12
FSNotes glushchenko
Fast Markdown note-taking app for Mac and iPhone
Complete system Production-ready You use Apple devices and want a native app over plain Markdown files.
★ 7.6k MIT Swift Active, pushed today -
13
PlainApp plainhub
🔥 PlainApp is an open-source app that lets you securely manage your phone from a web browser. Access files, media, contacts, SMS, calls, and more through a simple, easy-to-use interface on your desktop.
Complete system Usable You want to move files and handle messages on your Android phone from your computer without cloud services.
★ 7.1k AGPL-3.0 Kotlin Active, pushed today -
14
App standardnotes
Think fearlessly with end-to-end encrypted notes and files. For issues, visit https://standardnotes.com/forum or https://standardnotes.com/help.
Complete system Production-ready You want long-term encrypted notes from an established privacy company.
★ 6.7k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
15
SilverBullet silverbulletmd
The malleable knowledge base for you and your team. Powered by Markdown and Lua.
Complete system Usable You are technical and want a note system you can script and extend yourself.
★ 6.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today -
16
QOwnNotes pbek
QOwnNotes is a plain-text file notepad and todo-list manager with Markdown support and Nextcloud / ownCloud integration.
Complete system Production-ready You use Nextcloud and want a native desktop notes app over your files.
★ 5.9k GPL-2.0 C++ Active, pushed today -
17
Floral Notepaper Achilng
花笺，轻量优雅的跨平台桌面便签工具，支持 Markdown 编辑与预览
Complete system Usable You want simple Markdown sticky notes on your desktop.
★ 5.6k MIT Rust Active, pushed today -
18
TagSpaces tagspaces
TagSpaces is an offline, open source, document manager with tagging support
Complete system Usable You want to tag and browse files across folders without a database or cloud.
★ 5.4k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
19
Saber saber-notes
The cross-platform open-source app built for handwriting
Complete system Usable You want handwritten notes that work across tablets and computers without a proprietary service.
★ 5k GPL-3.0 Dart Active, pushed today -
20
Freeplane freeplane
Application for Mind Mapping, Knowledge Management, Project Management. Develop, organize and communicate your ideas and knowledge in the most effective way.
Complete system Production-ready You want a free mind mapper with scripting and formulas and do not mind a Java desktop interface.
★ 4.4k GPL-2.0 Java Active, pushed 3 days ago -
21
Personal Management System Volmarg
Your web application for managing personal data.
Complete system Usable You want one self-hosted place for assorted personal records and are comfortable running Symfony.
★ 4.2k MIT PHP Active, pushed 4 days ago -
22
Flatnotes dullage
A self-hosted, database-less note taking web app that utilises a flat folder of markdown files for storage.
Complete system Usable You want simple browser-based notes with files you can open in any editor.
★ 3.3k MIT Vue Active, pushed 2 months ago -
23
TreeSheets aardappel
Hierarchical spreadsheet: a free-form data organizer that replaces outliners, mind maps and spreadsheets.
Complete system Production-ready You think in nested structures and want a fast, free desktop organiser.
★ 3.2k Zlib C++ Active, pushed 7 days ago -
24
EdgeEver tianma-if
AI-native knowledge base & Evernote/Obsidian alternative with instant sync & native MCP. Free on Cloudflare or self-hosted via Docker.
Complete system Experimental You want an Evernote-style app on your own Cloudflare account with AI agent access.
★ 3.1k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
25
Alexandrie Smaug6739
📚 The open-source, offline-first Notion, Obsidian & Confluence alternative. Advanced Markdown, multi-tenant teams, OIDC/SSO, and local S3 backups. Deploy in one command.
Complete system Usable A small team wants self-hosted notes and wiki pages with a Markdown-first editor.
★ 2.9k MIT Vue Active, pushed 17 days ago
Developer tools 5
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1
Nb xwmx
CLI and local web plain text note‑taking, bookmarking, and archiving with linking, tagging, filtering, search, Git versioning & syncing, Pandoc conversion, + more, in a single portable script.
Developer tool Production-ready You live in the terminal and want notes and bookmarks in plain files versioned with Git.
★ 8.5k AGPL-3.0 Shell Active, pushed yesterday -
2
Jrnl jrnl-org
Collect your thoughts and notes without leaving the command line.
Developer tool Production-ready You want to keep a journal or work log from the terminal.
★ 7.4k GPL-3.0 Python Active, pushed today -
3
massCode massCodeIO
A free, open-source developer workspace. Snippets, notes, HTTP requests, calculations, and dev tools in one local-first app.
Developer tool Usable You want one free app for snippets and notes instead of several paid ones.
★ 7.1k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today -
4
Marksman artempyanykh
Write Markdown with code assist and intelligence in the comfort of your favourite editor.
Developer tool Production-ready You write Markdown notes or docs in Neovim, Emacs, Helix or VS Code and want link navigation and checks.
★ 3.4k MIT F# Active, pushed 2 months ago -
5
Dnote dnote
A simple command line notebook
Developer tool Usable You want to save small learnings from the terminal and search them later.
★ 3.1k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed 16 days ago
Compared head to head
Looking for an alternative to
Open-source licenses
- Permissive: 11. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
- Network copyleft: 9. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.
- Strong copyleft: 7. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
- Weak copyleft: 1. Changes to the licensed files must be shared, but you can link them into a closed program.
Languages
TypeScript 11, C++ 3, Dart 2, Go 2, Rust 2, Swift 2, Vue 2, Shell 1, Python 1, Kotlin 1, Java 1, PHP 1 and F# 1.
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