Memos

A lightweight, self-hosted note-taking app for short everyday thoughts, shown as a personal timeline, with Markdown and simple sharing.

64.2k stars, 4.9k forks Go On GitHub since December 2021

Visit website View on GitHub How to run it

What is Memos?

Memos works like a private microblog. A single sentence can be a memo, or you can write longer entries in Markdown, and everything appears in a timeline you can search and filter by tags. You decide which memos stay private and which you share. It is a single Go binary or container that stores data in SQLite by default, with MySQL and PostgreSQL as options, and has an API for integrations. Its interface is available in about 40 languages.

Good fit if

  • You want quick capture of ideas, links and journal entries on your own server.
  • You need something that runs on a tiny server with almost no setup.

Look elsewhere if

Before you adopt it

Memos is MIT-licensed, with no paid parts. Runs with one container, and about two dozen people contributed in the last three months.

Drafted with AI from the project's README and repository data, then checked against that data on 30 October 2026. Report a correction

Memos health: is it still maintained?

83 of 100, actively developed

  • Activity
    271 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 1 November 2026.
    29 / 30
  • Contributors
    22 people wrote the latest 100 commits; the most active wrote 45% of them.
    18 / 20
  • Releases
    8 releases in the last 12 months; the latest, 26.10.0, on 31 October 2026.
    17 / 20
  • Replies to issues
    Maintainers answered 30% of recent issues, with a median first reply after 18 hours.
    14 / 20
  • Security practices
    No OpenSSF Scorecard for this repository yet, so this part gets a neutral score.
    5 / 10

Read from GitHub on 1 November 2026. How the score works

Memos license: is it open source?

Memos uses MIT, an open-source license approved by the OSI.

  1. December 2021First published on GitHub.
  2. TodayMIT.

How to run Memos yourself

Docker
Dockerfile or compose file in the repository
Compose file
scripts/compose.yaml: 1 service
Setup effort
1 of 5, judged from the compose file
Kubernetes
No Helm chart in the repository
Desktop and mobile
Builds for Linux, Windows, macOS, including ARM in GitHub releases
Interface languages
41 languages

Install instructions: usememos.com or the README on GitHub.

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Questions about Memos

Is Memos open source?

Yes. Memos is published under MIT, an OSI-approved open-source license.

Is Memos still maintained?

Its health score is 83 of 100 (actively developed). It had 271 commits in the last 90 days, the latest on 1 November 2026, and its latest release came out on 31 October 2026.

How do I run Memos?

You can run it with Docker, as an app for Linux, Windows, macOS, including ARM. The README on GitHub has the exact steps.

What are the alternatives to Memos?

Close alternatives in the Notes & knowledge bases category include Notesnook, Trilium Notes, SiYuan.