Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Foam

Personal knowledge management and sharing on VSCode & GitHub

Foam is a personal knowledge management system built within Visual Studio Code that stores data on GitHub. Designed for developers and knowledge workers, it lets users organize notes, create connections between ideas… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Foam launched in 2020; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   Bubble▲1,409

   Build a fully functional web app without any code

   2015 · bubble.io · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Swimm▲513

   A code documentation tool built for devs

   2023 · swimm.io · its alternatives →

3. 3
   Personal Knowledge Base Visualization▲150

   My personal knowledge base is hosted on GitHub at https://raphaelsty.github.io/knowledge/. It scans the documents I like every day using GitHub Action, Zotero, HackerNews upvote and Github Likes. It's not yet optimized for smartphones. It cost me $5 to host it for a year.

   2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Bubble 2.0▲400

   Build and host web applications without having to write code

   2018 · its alternatives →

5. 5
   Visual Studio Live Share▲400

   Real-time collaborative development

   2018 · visualstudio.microsoft.com · its alternatives →

6. 6
   Abstract▲837

   Design collaboration without the chaos

   2017 · abstract.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Kanwas▲441

   An open-source brain for your team

   May 2026 · kanwas.ai · its alternatives →

8. 8
   Turn any website into a knowledge base for LLMs▲305

   I built this tool because I wanted a way to just take a bunch of URLs or domains, and query their content in RAG applications. It takes away the pain of crawling, extracting content, chunking, vectorizing, and updating periodically. I'm curious to see if it can be useful to others. I meant to launch this six months ago but life got in the way...

   2024 · embedding.io · its alternatives →

9. 9
   A simple Go web server with logging, tracing, health check▲318

   GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

   2018 · gist.github.com · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Archivy – Self-hosted knowledge base embedded into your filesystem▲219

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Archivy – Extensible Self Hosted Knowledge Base – v1 Release▲184

    2021 · archivy.github.io · its alternatives →

12. 12SI
    Scratchpad.io - a real-time HTML and CSS editor▲298

    Dash is a fun and free online course from General Assembly that teaches you how to program with the basics of web development through projects you can do right in your browser. Get started today!

    2012 · scratchpad.io · its alternatives →

13. 13
    Buildstash▲168

    Hey HN! We just launched open sign up on Buildstash. It's a platform for managing and sharing software binaries. I'd worked across game dev, mobile apps, and agencies - and found every team had no real system for managing their built binaries. Often just dumped in a shared folder (if someone remembered!). No system for versioning, keeping track of who'd signed off what when, or what exact build had gone to a client, etc. Existing tools out there for managing build artifacts are really focused on package repository management. But miss all the other types of software not being deployed that…

    2025 · buildstash.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Knowflow▲299

    Mindmapping with cards and concepts

    2019 · knowflow.io · its alternatives →

15. 15
    Visme▲230

    All-in-one design platform for you & your team

    2020 · visme.co · its alternatives →

16. 16MA
    memEx, a personal knowledge base inspired by zettlekasten and org-mode▲194

    2025 · gitea.bubbletea.dev · its alternatives →

17. 17
    Deck (alpha)▲101

    Automatic team management for Github

    2021 · withdeck.com · its alternatives →

18. 18
    Visme for Desktop▲141

    All-in-one design platform for your team, now on desktop!

    2021 · visme.co · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Largemem▲10

    We’re building Largemem, (https://largemem.com) a shared knowledge base where groups upload and maintain a common set of documents (PDFs, scans, audio) and query them conversationally. Each group has its own persistent knowledge base. We parse content into chunks, extract entities, and combine vector search with a lightweight knowledge graph, so answers can synthesize information across multiple documents and across the group’s shared context - not just retrieve isolated snippets. We would love to hear your feedback!

    Nov 2025 · largemem.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    Personal Knowledge Hub▲110

    A Notion template for staying organized and inspired

    2023 · samstoof.gumroad.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    MdSilo – A knowledge silo that runs in your web browser▲153

    mdSilo: Lightweight Personal Wiki on Desktop and Web

    2022 · mdsilo.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Type.com▲120

    A shared workspace for Claude, Codex, and your team

    Sep 2026 · type.com · its alternatives →

23. 23VF
    Visual framework to build Todo MVC▲21

    We're building Bubble, a tool to build apps without code (and without template). We've just built Todo MVC, would love to hear your thoughts on it. Here is the app: https://bubble.is/site/todomvcapp/ Here is the 'code': https://bubble.is/page?id=todomvcapp

    2014 · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Polymath▲87

    AI workspace to organize and share your knowledge

    2025 · trypolymath.ai · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →