Alternatives to Trilium Notes
Self-hostable hierarchical note tree with scripting
Trilium Notes ranks #4 of 22 in Personal knowledge management, with an Alt Score of 84. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0, free and available on Windows, macOS, Linux and Web. 14 of 14 checklist rows are verified against a public source.
People and small organizations building a large personal or team knowledge base (tens of thousands of notes) who want full control over where their data is hosted rather than relying on a cloud note-taking service.
A WYSIWYG/markdown editor for notes organized in an arbitrarily deep tree, with notes able to appear in multiple places via cloning. Includes full-text search, per-note encryption, automatic note revisions, custom attributes for organizing and querying notes, and built-in scripting for automation. It also supports non-text note types like code notes with syntax highlighting, canvas sketches (Excalidraw), mind maps, relation maps, and geomaps.
You install it as a desktop app (Windows/macOS/Linux), a browser client, or self-host the server (e.g. via Docker), then build up a hierarchy of notes and sub-notes. A self-hosted sync server keeps multiple installs in sync across devices, and individual notes can optionally be shared or published to the public internet.
Where Trilium Notes stands out
Verified capabilities most alternatives don't have.
Why people leave Trilium Notes
Dashed reasons are sourced facts; the rest are opinions. Vendors can dispute.
Sign in to add a reason — new reasons go through moderation before appearing.
Ranked alternatives
Ordered by Alt Score. Click any score to see the breakdown.
Feature comparison
Rows come from the Personal knowledge management checklist (18 rows). Human-verified cells only. ? means the value has not been verified.
| Personal knowledge management checklist | Trilium Notes | Craft | Heptabase | AppFlowy | Logseq | Notion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | ||||||
| Starts at | ||||||
| License | ||||||
| Platforms | ||||||
| Markdown support | ||||||
| Block-based editing | ||||||
| Backlinks / graph view | ||||||
| Databases & tables | ||||||
| Templates | ||||||
| Real-time collaboration | ||||||
| Web clipper | ||||||
| Sync between devices (native) | ||||||
| Local-first storage | ||||||
| Plugins / extensions | ||||||
| Daily notes | ||||||
| Task management built in | ||||||
| Publish to web | ||||||
| Version history |
Every fact and feature listed for Trilium Notes is verified against its own pages. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.
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Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux, Web verified 2026-07-12
Windows / MacOS
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
License AGPL-3.0 verified 2026-07-12
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the L
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Pricing model Free verified 2026-07-12
Trilium Notes is a free and open-source, cross-platform hierarchical note taking application with focus on building large personal knowledge bases.
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Status active verified 2026-07-12
The original Trilium developer (Zadam) has graciously given the Trilium repository to the community project which resides at https://github.com/TriliumNext
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Markdown support Yes verified 2026-07-12
Evernote and Markdown import & export
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Block-based editing No verified 2026-07-12
Trilium uses a commercial product (with an open-source base) called CKEditor. This brings the benefit of having a powerful WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/note-types/text -
Backlinks / graph view Yes verified 2026-07-12
Once created, the note map will display the relations between notes.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/note-types/note-map -
Databases & tables Yes verified 2026-07-12
Collections are a unique type of note that don't have content, but instead display their child notes in various presentation methods.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/collections -
Templates Yes verified 2026-07-12
A template in Trilium serves as a predefined structure for other notes, referred to as instance notes.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/advanced-usage/template -
Real-time collaboration No verified 2026-07-12
Common request is to allow multiple users collaborate, share notes etc. So far I'm resisting this because of these reasons
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/faq -
Web clipper Yes verified 2026-07-12
Web Clipper for easy saving of web content
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Sync between devices (native) Yes verified 2026-07-12
Synchronization with self-hosted sync server
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Local-first storage Yes verified 2026-07-12
Trilium is an offline-first note-taking application that stores all data locally on the desktop client.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/setup/synchronization -
Plugins / extensions Partial verified 2026-07-12
for 3rd party themes, scripts, plugins and more.
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Daily notes Yes verified 2026-07-12
Trilium semi-automatically generates a single note for each day. Under this note you can save all those relevant notes.
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/advanced-usage/advanced-showcases/day-notes -
Task management built in Yes verified 2026-07-12
Task Manager manages outstanding (TODO) tasks and finished tasks (non-empty doneDate attribute).
https://docs.triliumnotes.org/user-guide/advanced-usage/advanced-showcases/task-manager -
Publish to web Yes verified 2026-07-12
Sharing (publishing) notes to public internet
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium -
Version history Yes verified 2026-07-12
Seamless note versioning
https://github.com/TriliumNext/Trilium
FAQ
Yes. Craft, Logseq and Notion have a free tier or are fully free. Free-tier limits in the comparison table are verified and dated.
AppFlowy, Logseq and acreom — every license claim links its source.