What is CherryTree used for?

CherryTree is a hierarchical note-taking application with rich text, syntax highlighting, tables and code boxes, storing data in a single file or in multiple files. It is a good fit for personal knowledge base, developer notes with code snippets and structured research notes.

Is CherryTree open source?

Yes. CherryTree is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at giuspen/cherrytree and is written mainly in C++.

Yes. CherryTree is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host CherryTree?

Yes. CherryTree can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is CherryTree an alternative to?

CherryTree is an open-source alternative to Microsoft OneNote, Evernote and UpNote. Other open-source alternatives to Microsoft OneNote include Trilium Notes, Joplin and SiYuan.

Is CherryTree actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to CherryTree was on 19 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.7.2, published on 22 August 2026. The project has 4k stars on GitHub.

CherryTree: open-source alternative to Microsoft OneNote

About CherryTree

CherryTree is a hierarchical note-taking application that organizes notes as a tree of nodes. It supports rich text and syntax highlighting, and stores data either in a single file, in XML or SQLite format, or across multiple files and directories. It was written by Giuseppe Penone and Evgenii Gurianov and is built in C++.

Rich text formatting covers colors, headings, text styles, subscript, superscript and monospace, and notes can include images that can be resized and rotated, LaTeX math equations, embedded files, multi-level lists with to-do items, simple tables with CSV import and export, and code boxes with optional syntax highlighting. Code nodes and code boxes can be executed, with an embedded terminal on Linux and macOS.

Hyperlinks can point to web pages, other nodes, files or folders, spell check uses gspell, and copy and paste works inside the application and with other programs such as LibreOffice and Gmail. Text, images, tables and code boxes can be aligned. The project's home page is giuspen.net/cherrytree.

Key features

Hierarchical tree of notes
Rich text with syntax highlighting
Single-file XML or SQLite storage
Images, tables and LaTeX equations
Code boxes that can be executed
Hyperlinks to nodes, files and folders
Spell check with gspell

Good fit for

→Personal knowledge base
→Developer notes with code snippets
→Structured research notes

Built with: C++
Tags: note-taking; notes; hierarchical; rich-text; syntax-highlighting; desktop; cpp; knowledge-base

CherryTree: questions and answers

What is CherryTree used for?: CherryTree is a hierarchical note-taking application with rich text, syntax highlighting, tables and code boxes, storing data in a single file or in multiple files. It is a good fit for personal knowledge base, developer notes with code snippets and structured research notes.
Is CherryTree open source?: Yes. CherryTree is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at giuspen/cherrytree and is written mainly in C++.
Is CherryTree free?: Yes. CherryTree is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host CherryTree?: Yes. CherryTree can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is CherryTree an alternative to?: CherryTree is an open-source alternative to Microsoft OneNote, Evernote and UpNote. Other open-source alternatives to Microsoft OneNote include Trilium Notes, Joplin and SiYuan.
Is CherryTree actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to CherryTree was on 19 September 2026, and the latest release is v1.7.2, published on 22 August 2026. The project has 4k stars on GitHub.