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Zen — lightweight self-hosted Markdown notes on SQLite with BM25 search and history

OSS scale score Not calculatedOSS health 78Update pace 27 commits/30d
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Stars
1,174
Primary language
JavaScript
License
AGPL-3.0
Repository last updated
Sep 13, 2026

Overview

Zen is a lightweight self-hosted notes application that keeps notes as standard Markdown and stores management data in SQLite. It provides tags, BM25 full-text search, templates, pinning, history, internal links, import/export, and single-binary or Docker deployment. No GitHub Release is published at the checked date.

Features and best fit

Based on official documentation; not hands-on tested · Content checked:

Keep Markdown portability while adding SQLite-backed search and organization

Notes remain Markdown-oriented while tags, BM25 search, templates, archive/soft-delete, history, and internal links add structured management.

Sources: [2]

Extend backups, migration, and AI/MCP through companion and experimental features

The README points to companion backup/import projects and marks JSON Canvas, semantic search, similar-image search, and MCP as experimental.

Sources: [2]

For users who want a small portable notes service rather than a large knowledge platform

It fits self-hosted personal knowledge workflows where Markdown ownership matters but web search/history are still useful.

Sources: [2]

Separate experimental and companion projects from stable core behavior

Canvas, semantic search, similar images, and MCP are explicitly experimental, and backup/import/intelligence features involve separate repositories. Operators still need backups for SQLite and Markdown storage. Zen is AGPL-3.0.

Sources: [2][3]

Official sources

  1. [1]sheshbabu/zen repository(2026-09-18)
  2. [2]Zen README(2026-09-18)
  3. [3]Zen license.md(2026-09-18)
Supplemental curator note

Zen emphasizes portability through standard Markdown plus SQLite and a single Go binary/Docker deployment. Canvas, semantic search, similar-image search, and MCP are explicitly marked experimental in the README.

Try it in 3 steps

  1. 1

    Get the source

    git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/sheshbabu/zen.git
  2. 2

    Enter the repository

    cd zen
  3. 3

    Check the official steps

    Continue with the commands in the README Installation, Quick Start, or Getting Started section.

    find . -maxdepth 1 -iname 'README*' -exec sed -n '1,220p' {} \; -quit
Check the official README

Growth

Growth trends · Last 30 days

1,174 Stars

Trend data is still being collected.

Development activity

Last 90 days · weekly

Commits (last 30 days)
27
Open PRs
1

Development activity is still being collected.

Built with

Categories and tags

Categories

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GitHub data

GitHub dataView detailed GitHub data
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GitHub Topics

  • markdown
  • notes
  • preact
  • sqlite
  • mcp-server
Stars
1,174
Forks
61
Watchers
13
Open issues
0
Primary language
JavaScript
License
AGPL-3.0
Repository last updated
Sep 13, 2026
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