8 Must‑Try Open‑Source Note‑Taking Apps Ranked by GitHub Stars

I actually like the Notion note‑taking app and use it a lot, so today I’m sharing the eight best open‑source note‑taking projects on GitHub, ordered by star count from low to high.

Self‑hosted note‑taking app

JS‑based note web app

More than just a notebook

Focalboard

Real‑time collaborative editor

Hierarchical note app

Markdown‑based note app

Open‑source Notion alternative

1. Self‑hosted note‑taking app

This self‑hosted note‑taking application stores notes on S3 and other object storage services such as MinIO and Alibaba Cloud OSS; it has 1.4k GitHub stars.

Notes are files (text or images); databases aren’t ideal for such binary data, while S3 can generate signed URLs for remote access.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/QingWei-Li/notea

2. JS‑based note web app

Laverna is a JavaScript note‑taking web app with a Markdown editor and encryption support, boasting 8.8k GitHub stars and serving as an open‑source Evernote alternative.

It stores all notes in the browser’s database (IndexedDB or localStorage), keeping them secure and accessible only to the user.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/Laverna/laverna

3. More than just a notebook

This project, Leanote, helps you take notes, manage knowledge, write blogs, and collaborate, offering a clean interface and a writing mode that boosts productivity.

It allows sharing notes with friends and inviting collaborators to your cloud notebook, and has earned 10.8k stars.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/leanote/leanote

4. Focalboard

Focalboard offers personal and team versions for individual users or team collaboration, supporting macOS, Windows, and Linux.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/mattermost/focalboard

5. Real‑time collaborative editor

Etherpad, with 12.6k stars, is a real‑time collaborative editor that can scale to thousands of simultaneous users and provides full data export capabilities, plus a rich plugin ecosystem.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/ether/etherpad-lite

6. Hierarchical note app

Trilium Notes is a hierarchical note‑taking application focused on building large personal knowledge bases, allowing notes to be arranged in arbitrarily deep trees and placed in multiple locations.

It supports Evernote and Markdown import/export and has gathered over 20k stars.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/zadam/trilium

7. Markdown‑based note app

A visually appealing, feature‑rich open‑source note app that supports theme switching, Zen mode, multiple editors, split view, and more, earning nearly 20k stars on GitHub.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/notable/notable

8. Open‑source Notion alternative

AppFlowy is an open‑source Notion alternative built with Flutter and Rust, addressing Notion’s limitations such as data security and mobile compatibility.

Open‑source address: https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy