Plainpad
Modern note taking application for the cloud, utilizing the best features of progressive web apps technology.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 85 commits in the last 90 days, latest release 1.2.0 (Oct 2026).
At a glance
Plainpad quick facts
- Health score
- 81/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 450
- Last commit
- 4 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- 1.2.0, Oct 2026
- Licence
- GPL-3.0
Top alternatives to Plainpad
In its own words
The project's README opens: "Driven by simplicity and stability in mind, Plainpad offers great potential at no cost. Become the owner of your data as Plainpad will nicely run on your own server."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
Plainpad scores 81/100, #15 of 21 in Note-taking & Editors: 85 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (1.2.0, 4 days ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 450 stars add 10.6 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
85 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
1.2.0 released 4 days ago
- Stars 10.6 / 20
450 stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 85
- Last 90 days
- 228
- Last 12 months
- 4 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #15 of 21 tools in Note-taking & Editors by health , between bewCloud (#14) and Blinko (#16) .
Details
| Licence | GPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | PHP |
| Latest release | 1.2.0 · 4 days ago |
| Stars | 450 |
| Open issues | 10 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | alextselegidis/plainpad ↗ |
Plainpad vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a category with Plainpad (Note-taking & Editors), scored on the same five terms.
| Tool | Health | Stars | Licence | Last commit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TriliumNext Notes | 98 | 39k | AGPL-3.0 | today |
| SilverBullet | 95 | 6.4k | MIT | today |
| Many Notes | 92 | 1.1k | MIT | 6 days ago |
| Joplin | 89 | 57k | MIT | yesterday |
| Docs | 87 | 17k | MIT | today |
| Plainpad (this tool) | 81 | 450 | GPL-3.0 | 4 days ago |
Plainpad: common questions
Is Plainpad still maintained?
Plainpad had 85 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 4 days ago; the latest tagged release, 1.2.0, is from 4 days ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.