Best Self-Hosted Notes Tools

6 self-hostable notes tools you can run on your own server — compared on specs, deployment difficulty, and the SaaS each one replaces.

Notes

AFFiNE

A workspace that combines documents, whiteboards and databases on one canvas, with a local-first editor and real-time collaboration. The self-hosted server runs with PostgreSQL and Redis; upstream plans for at least 2 GB of RAM.

TypeScriptNode.jsRustPostgreSQLRedis

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Notes

HedgeDoc

A real-time collaborative Markdown editor: several people edit the same note in the browser at once, and notes can be published as read-only pages or presented as slides. Formerly known as CodiMD.

Node.jsTypeScriptPostgreSQL

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Notes

Joplin Server

The self-hosted sync server for the Joplin note-taking apps, storing notes in PostgreSQL and adding note sharing and multi-user accounts. It is free for personal, non-commercial use under its own license; commercial use needs a separate license.

TypeScriptNode.jsPostgreSQL

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Me

Notes

Memos

A lightweight, self-hosted note stream for short-form Markdown notes, links and work logs, organized by timeline, tags and search rather than folders. It runs as a single container backed by SQLite by default.

GoReactSQLite

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Si

Notes

SilverBullet

A browser-based Markdown notes app with wiki-style links, a built-in query language and Lua scripting (Space Lua), storing pages as plain Markdown files on disk. One server can host several spaces, managed from a web dashboard.

RustTypeScriptLua

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Notes

Trilium Notes

A hierarchical note-taking app for building a personal knowledge base, with rich-text and code notes, note cloning, per-note encryption and scripting. The server edition serves a web UI and acts as the sync server for the Trilium desktop app.

TypeScriptNode.jsSQLite

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