Foam vs nb Notes
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted notes & knowledge base options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Foam
Personal knowledge management on top of VS Code
VS
nb Notes
Command-line note-taking, bookmarking, and archiving tool
| Feature | Foam | nb Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | Shell |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | source | bare-metal, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 17,328 | ★ 8,343 |
| First released | 2020 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Roam Research, Obsidian | Evernote, Notion |
Why pick each one
Choose Foam if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 17.3k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Foam or nb Notes better?
Neither is universally better. Foam has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Foam and nb Notes free and open-source?
Yes. Foam is licensed under MIT and nb Notes under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Foam and nb Notes with Docker?
Foam: check the project docs for container support. nb Notes: check the project docs for container support.