Plane vs Trilium Notes

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePlaneTrilium Notes
CategoryProject Management & TasksNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseAGPL-3.0AGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM2,048 MB256 MB
Deploymentdockerdocker, bare-metal
GitHub stars★ 55,704★ 37,298
First released20232017
ReplacesJira, Linear, AsanaEvernote, Notion

Why pick each one

Choose Plane if…

  • Polished modern interface
  • Good for product teams
  • Active development
Plane details

Choose Trilium Notes if…

  • Powerful for big knowledge bases
  • Flexible structure
  • Scriptable
Trilium Notes details

Frequently asked questions

Is Plane or Trilium Notes better?

Neither is universally better. Plane has the larger community, while Trilium Notes is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Plane and Trilium Notes free and open-source?

Yes. Plane is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Trilium Notes under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Plane and Trilium Notes with Docker?

Plane: yes. Trilium Notes: yes.

Related comparisons