Anchor vs Pad

Comparing two open source alternatives to Notion . Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

Anchor

AGPL-3.0

Offline-first, self-hostable note-taking app with rich text, tags, attachments, and cross-device sync via Docker.

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Pad

Apache-2.0

Local-first project management for developers and AI agents, with a CLI, web UI, SQLite backend, and native skills for Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and more.

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Side-by-side comparison

	Anchor	Pad
License	AGPL-3.0	Apache-2.0
Self-hostable	Yes	Yes
GitHub Stars	1,206	120
Forks	51	21
Open Issues	45	20
Last Commit	Aug 12, 2026	Aug 13, 2026
First Released	Dec 1, 2025	Mar 26, 2026
Categories	Note Taking & Knowledge Management Tools	Project Management
Tags	#notes #self hosted #offline-first #cross-platform #docker	#local-first #cli #ai-agents #agent-tools #mcp-server

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