zk is a command-line assistant for maintaining a plain-text Zettelkasten or personal wiki with templates, search, links, and editor integrations. It is a good fit for terminal-based Zettelkasten note taking and personal wiki kept in a Git repository.

Yes. zk is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zk-org/zk and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. zk is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is zk an alternative to?

zk is an open-source alternative to Obsidian. Other open-source alternatives to Obsidian include nb, IWE and Notabase.

Is zk actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to zk was on 12 September 2026, and the latest release is v0.15.6, published on 26 July 2026. The project has 2.8k stars on GitHub.

zk: open-source alternative to Obsidian

About zk

zk is a command-line tool for maintaining a plain-text Zettelkasten or personal wiki. Notes are ordinary Markdown files, so the collection stays future-proof and can be used with any editor. The tool is written in Go and released under the GPL-3.0 license.

It creates notes from templates, and offers advanced search and filtering by tags, links, and mentions. An interactive browser is powered by fzf, and the tool supports Git-style command aliases and named filters, with automation in mind. Editor integration works through the Language Server Protocol, with plugins for Emacs, Neovim, and Visual Studio Code, and most Markdown syntax is supported.

The project also includes notebook housekeeping features and has a Matrix room for discussion and support. zk suits developers and writers who live in the terminal and want a durable, scriptable note system without a proprietary app or database.

Key features

Notes created from templates
Search by tags, links, and mentions
Editor support through LSP
Plugins for Emacs, Neovim, and VS Code
Interactive browsing powered by fzf
Command aliases and named filters
Plain Markdown storage

Good fit for

→Terminal-based Zettelkasten note taking
→Personal wiki kept in a Git repository

Built with: Go
Tags: zettelkasten; note-taking; cli; markdown; personal-wiki; second-brain; lsp; go

zk: questions and answers

What is zk used for?: zk is a command-line assistant for maintaining a plain-text Zettelkasten or personal wiki with templates, search, links, and editor integrations. It is a good fit for terminal-based Zettelkasten note taking and personal wiki kept in a Git repository.
Is zk open source?: Yes. zk is open source under the GPL-3.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at zk-org/zk and is written mainly in Go.
Is zk free?: Yes. zk is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is zk an alternative to?: zk is an open-source alternative to Obsidian. Other open-source alternatives to Obsidian include nb, IWE and Notabase.
Is zk actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to zk was on 12 September 2026, and the latest release is v0.15.6, published on 26 July 2026. The project has 2.8k stars on GitHub.