Choosing a notes and knowledge-base tool means balancing capture, organization, privacy, and project health. This September 2026 view uses supplied ToolVitals data, including ToolVitals, health, and shipping scores, openness and license labels, project descriptions, and GitHub-star counts.
The list includes open/source-visible tools only. It is ordered by ToolVitals score descending, with health and shipping breaking equal composite scores; GitHub stars are context only and do not determine the ordering.
Rankings
| Rank | Tool | Openness | License | Health | Shipping | GitHub Stars | Score | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trilium | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 98 | 99 | 37692 | 98 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 2 | Trilium.cc | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 98 | 99 | 37695 | 98 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 3 | Logseq | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 97 | 97 | 44750 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 4 | Minutes | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 97 | 97 | 1462 | 97 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 5 | AFFiNE | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 97 | 95 | 72153 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 6 | Freeplane | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 96 | 96 | 4327 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 7 | Saber | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 96 | 96 | 4758 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 8 | SilverBullet | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 96 | 96 | 5994 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 9 | Basic Memory | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 96 | 95 | 3846 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 10 | Memos | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 96 | 95 | 62743 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 11 | SiYuan | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 95 | 98 | 46149 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 12 | Anarlog | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 95 | 97 | 9227 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 13 | Athenaeum | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 95 | 97 | 11 | 96 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 14 | NoteDiscovery | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 95 | 95 | 2776 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 15 | Notesnook | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 95 | 95 | 14487 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 16 | QOwnNotes | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-2.0 | 94 | 95 | 5861 | 95 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 17 | note-gen | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 94 | 95 | 12722 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 18 | Butterfly | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 93 | 95 | 1992 | 94 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 19 | Standard Notes | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 92 | 90 | 6618 | 91 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 20 | Eidos | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 88 | 94 | 3182 | 90 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 21 | Poznote | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 87 | 94 | 789 | 90 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 22 | Glyph | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 87 | 93 | 164 | 89 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 23 | iwe | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 87 | 90 | 1612 | 88 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 24 | Understand Anything | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 89 | 81 | 81391 | 86 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 25 | Atomic | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 81 | 91 | 1945 | 85 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 26 | massCode | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 86 | 82 | 6976 | 84 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 27 | FSNotes | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 84 | 82 | 7463 | 83 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 28 | Blinko | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 85 | 78 | 10976 | 82 | 🟢 Excellent |
| 29 | Bangle | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 78 | 81 | 1231 | 79 | 🟢 Good |
| 30 | Lokus | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 79 | 77 | 783 | 78 | 🟢 Good |
| 31 | TidGi Desktop | OSI-approved OSS | MPL-2.0 | 79 | 75 | 2002 | 78 | 🟢 Good |
| 32 | TideMind | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 70 | 61 | 9 | 66 | 🟢 Good |
| 33 | Ephe | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 66 | 62 | 582 | 65 | 🟢 Good |
| 34 | Noeko | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 63 | 59 | 6 | 62 | 🟢 Good |
| 35 | Clearly | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 65 | 52 | 1153 | 60 | 🟢 Good |
| 36 | Spool | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 63 | 47 | 591 | 56 | 🟡 Fair |
| 37 | Meetily | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 58 | 32 | 30220 | 48 | 🟡 Fair |
| 38 | OpenWriter | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 51 | 44 | 27 | 48 | 🟡 Fair |
| 39 | Lumina Note | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 53 | 31 | 912 | 44 | 🟡 Fair |
| 40 | SwarmVault | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 46 | 33 | 678 | 41 | 🟡 Fair |
| 41 | Notty | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 42 | 25 | 502 | 35 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 42 | Notabase | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 42 | 24 | 911 | 35 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 43 | Lydie | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 42 | 17 | 48 | 32 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 44 | dnote | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 37 | 13 | 3076 | 28 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 45 | Surf | OSI-approved OSS | Apache-2.0 | 35 | 5 | 3558 | 23 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 46 | Owlistic | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 34 | 0 | 432 | 20 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 47 | Eclaire | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 17 | 2 | 917 | 11 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 48 | DevLune Voltex Notes | OSI-approved OSS | MIT | 15 | 4 | 2 | 11 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 49 | GitJournal | OSI-approved OSS | AGPL-3.0 | 17 | 0 | 4216 | 10 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
| 50 | AirDesktop | OSI-approved OSS | GPL-3.0 | 15 | 3 | 0 | 10 | 🔴 Needs Attention |
Top 3 Highlights
Trilium ranks first for September 2026 with a ToolVitals score of 98, health score of 98, and shipping score of 99. Its supplied description focuses on building a personal knowledge base with Trilium Notes. ToolVitals labels it OSI-approved OSS and AGPL-3.0; the supplied GitHub count is 37,692 stars, which is context rather than a reason for its rank.
Trilium.cc is ranked second with a ToolVitals score of 98, health score of 98, and shipping score of 99. The supplied description identifies it as a personal knowledge base. It carries the labels OSI-approved OSS and AGPL-3.0 and is linked to the TriliumNext/Trilium repository; its supplied GitHub count is 37,695 stars. That star count is context only, not a ranking factor.
Logseq ranks third with a ToolVitals score of 97, health score of 97, and shipping score of 97. The supplied description presents it as a privacy-first platform for knowledge management and collaboration. ToolVitals labels it OSI-approved OSS and AGPL-3.0; its supplied GitHub count is 44,750 stars, included for context rather than ranking.
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