Trilium Notes — A self-hosted hierarchical note workspace with deep nesting and scripting, maintained by the TriliumNext community.
What it is
Trilium Notes is a free, open-source, self-hosted note application organized as an arbitrarily deep tree of notes, with cloning, attributes, code and canvas notes, scripting and an optional sync server.
Editor's review
Long-form introduction by the BetterPicker editors · checked against the official site · Oct 30, 2026
Trilium's pitch is hierarchy without a ceiling, and Jim's Garage makes the case plainly in a video titled the perfect note taking app (72,390 views): nested notes as deep as you like, an editor rich enough for real writing, and a self-hosted home for all of it. DB Tech's walkthrough (55,476 views) and an Awesome Open Source tour (52,411 views) cover the day-note journaling and database-style power, a wiki-style angle arrives from Mindful Technology (14,219 views), and MRP's Trilium Next overview (16,596 views) catches the project at its handover moment - the original author stepped back, stewardship moved to the TriliumNext organization, and the repository that the historical zadam address redirects to now shows an AGPL license, close to 39,000 stargazers and a v0.106.1 release with the community shipping updates. The product itself is a notes workspace that treats every note as a node in a tree you can nest to any depth, clone into multiple places, and extend with attributes that act like tags and properties. Notes can be rich text, code, diagrams, canvases or runnable scripts, and a built-in automation layer executes JavaScript against your notes. A day pattern gives you a dated journal out of the box, protected notes encrypt behind a password, and sync runs either through your own sync server container or simple export round trips. It is free software with no paid tier, and your data lives in one directory you can back up like any other file. The interface rewards a weekend of setup with years of structured capture.
What it does well
Depth is the design: nth-level nesting plus cloning means one note can live in two projects at once without duplication or drift.
Power users get real automation: attributes, scripts and an API turn the vault into a small personal database rather than a pile of documents.
You own the store: Docker or bare-metal self-hosting, encrypted protected notes, and plain-file exports keep the exit door open.
Who it's for
Developers and tinkerers who want an Obsidian-style vault they fully host, researchers building deep reference trees, and anyone whose notes are really a personal knowledge base with structure. Comfort with Docker or a VPS is the entry ticket, and the payoff is total ownership.
Where it falls short
Collaboration is not the point: it is single-user by design, so shared team wikis belong to a different tool.
The interface is dense: attributes, promotion levels and code notes trade polish for control, and the learning curve is steeper than consumer note apps.
Mobile is the weak flank: there is no polished native phone app, so on-the-go capture means the web UI or community clients of varying quality.
Specs at a glance
Facts from the official site · not editorial opinion
| Latest version | v0.106.1 (TriliumNext/Trilium GitHub releases) |
|---|---|
| Price | Free and open source; no paid tier |
| Platforms | Self-hosted server (Docker or Node.js) with web access; desktop clients for Windows, macOS and Linux |
| Open source | Yes - AGPL-3.0, maintained by the TriliumNext organization (38,539 stars) |
| Core capability | Arbitrarily deep note tree, cloning, attributes and relations, rich text and code notes, canvas and diagram notes, day-pattern journal, protected encrypted notes, JavaScript scripting and API |
| Integrations | Built-in sync server, export and import (Markdown, HTML, Evernote ENEX), REST-like internal API, custom scripts and widgets |
| Best for | Self-hosting enthusiasts who want a deep, scriptable personal knowledge base they fully own |
Frequently asked questions
▸What happened to the original Trilium project?
The original author moved on and the community took over: the zadam/trilium address now redirects to the TriliumNext/Trilium repository, which continues releases such as v0.106.1.
▸Is Trilium free?
Yes. It is open source under the AGPL with no paid tier. Costs are whatever your host or VPS charges.
▸Can multiple people use one Trilium server?
It is designed as a single-user knowledge base with synced devices. For a shared team wiki, tools like BookStack or Wiki.js fit better.
▸Does Trilium work on phones?
There is no polished native mobile app. You can use the mobile browser view against your server, or community clients; capture on the go is the weakest part of the experience.
Video reviews
5 review videos aggregated · praise and criticism included alike · click through to the original video
Channels that covered it
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Related tools
Where to go next
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