NotionAbout Memos
Memos is for people who find Notion too heavy for what they actually do: jot thoughts down fast. It's a self-hosted note service built around a private, chronological timeline — open it, type, tag, done.
It runs as a single lightweight Go binary with SQLite, so it deploys on a $5 VPS or a Raspberry Pi in minutes. Markdown support, tags, and an API keep it capable without ever feeling like work.
MIT-licensed and hugely popular, Memos is the minimal, privacy-first answer for personal notes — a timeline you own instead of a workspace you manage.
What makes it different
A timeline-first UI built for jotting thoughts in seconds, with Markdown and tags.
Fully self-hosted — every memo stays in a SQLite database you control.
A single Go binary or tiny Docker image — runs happily on a Raspberry Pi.
A clean API plus community mobile apps and browser extensions.
Go
TypeScript
SQLite
DockerThe honest read
- Extremely fast, low-friction note capture
- Trivial to self-host — one binary or container
- MIT licensed, free forever
- Markdown, tags and search built in
- Tiny resource footprint
- Not a full workspace — no databases or boards
- Collaboration features are minimal
- Official mobile apps are community-driven
- Timeline model won't suit long-form writing
Quick answers
Yes — Memos is free and open source under the MIT license, with no paid tiers. You only pay for the server you run it on.
Memos is a lightweight, self-hosted timeline for quick personal notes, while Notion is a heavy cloud workspace. If most of your Notion use is jotting things down, Memos is faster and fully private.
Almost nothing — a single binary or Docker container with SQLite. It runs on a small VPS or even a Raspberry Pi.
Yes — memos are written in Markdown with support for tags, links, images and code blocks.
The web app is responsive and installable, and the community maintains mobile clients that connect over the API.
More open-source picks
Block-based PKM with backlinks and flashcards.
Encrypted markdown notes with sync everywhere.
Hierarchical notes for large personal knowledge bases.
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