Scratch vs TriliumNext Notes
Comparing two open source alternatives to Notion and Evernote and Obsidian. Use the comparison below to decide which one fits your needs.

Scratch
MITScratch is a minimalist, offline-first markdown note-taking app for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Plain text files, keyboard-driven, with no cloud lock-in or account required.

TriliumNext Notes
AGPL-3.0Hierarchical personal knowledge base with powerful note-taking, rich text editing, and scripting capabilities.
Side-by-side comparison
Scratch | TriliumNext Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-hostable | Yes | Yes |
| GitHub Stars | 1,564 | 37,635 |
| Forks | 150 | 2,528 |
| Open Issues | 77 | 698 |
| Last Commit | Jul 28, 2026 | Aug 30, 2026 |
| First Released | Jan 31, 2026 | May 23, 2017 |
| Categories | ||
| Tags |
GitHub stars over time
GitHub stars over time
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