What is the main difference between Open Paper and SurfSense?

Open Paper and SurfSense are both ai research assistants but differ in their approach, features, and target audience. Compare their GitHub stats, technology stack, and community adoption to make the best choice.

Which is better: Open Paper or SurfSense?

The choice between Open Paper and SurfSense depends on your specific needs, technical requirements, and team preferences. Both are quality open source solutions with active communities.

Can I migrate from Open Paper to SurfSense?

Migration between Open Paper and SurfSense is possible but requires careful planning. Consider data export/import capabilities, feature parity, and potential workflow changes.

Stellar Hosted – Managed Open Source software hosting in the EU: secure, compliant, fast.

Learn more

Open Paper vs SurfSense

Learn how Open Paper and SurfSense differ in their key features, development activity, technology stack and community adoption, so you can decide which of these ai research assistants is best for you.

Open Paper

A focused reader for academic papers that combines annotation tools with AI-powered understanding to help you get more from research.

Visit Open Paper Read more

524stars+20(+4%)

Last 30 days

Last commit
16 days ago
Repository age
2 years
License
AGPL-3.0
Repository
khoj-ai/openpaper

SurfSense

Self-hostable NotebookLM alternative that lets teams build searchable knowledge bases from diverse sources, with support for any LLM and no data limits.

Visit SurfSense Read more

16,879stars+422(+2.6%)

Last 30 days

Last commit
2 days ago
Repository age
2 years
Version
v2.3.1
License
Apache-2.0
Self-hosted
Yes
Repository
modsetter/surfsense

Detailed Comparison

Both Open Paper and SurfSense have their unique strengths and serve similar purposes effectively. Consider your specific needs regarding popularity, growth, activity, maturity, licensing and features when making your decision.

SurfSense wins

Community & Popularity

SurfSense significantly outpaces Open Paper in community adoption with 16,879 stars compared to 524 stars on GitHub. This 32.2x difference suggests SurfSense has a much larger and more active community. In terms of developer contributions, SurfSense has 1,612 forks, indicating strong developer engagement.

Open Paper wins

Growth Momentum

Open Paper is growing faster, adding 20 stars in the last 30 days (+4%) against adding 422 stars for SurfSense (+2.6%). Open Paper is the smaller project of the two, so it is closing the gap rather than extending a lead.

Comparable

Development Activity

Both projects show recent activity, with Open Paper last updated 16 days ago and SurfSense 2 days ago.

Comparable

Project Maturity

Both projects started around the same time, with Open Paper beginning 2 years ago and SurfSense 2 years ago.

Comparable

Licensing

The projects use different licenses: Open Paper is licensed under AGPL-3.0 while SurfSense uses Apache-2.0. Consider the licensing requirements when choosing for your project.

Comparable

Use Cases & Features

Both tools serve similar use cases in AI Research Assistants. However, they also have distinct specializations: SurfSense extends into Personal Knowledge Management (PKM), Enterprise Knowledge Search.

SurfSense wins

Hosting & Deployment

SurfSense provides self-hosting options for complete data control and customization, while Open Paper may be primarily cloud-based or require different deployment approaches.

Other tool comparisons to consider