head to head · open source
Memos vs GitJournal
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. GitJournal has 4,246 stars, 317 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. Memos leads on adoption by 1,413% (64,235 vs 4,246 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; GitJournal is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, GitJournal 7%. Memos was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (markdown, note-taking, notes), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Memos | GitJournal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-05-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 317 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Memos if
- You weight community size — 64K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick GitJournal if
- You want the GitJournal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and GitJournal fits your workflow better
About Memos
✨ Featured sponsor: CodeRabbit — Industry leading AI code reviews. Memos Fast enough for every thought. Private enough for all of them. Memos is an open source, self hosted home for short form thinking. Daily notes, links, work logs, and snippets flow into a chronological Markdown timeline—on infrastructure you control, without the overhead of an all in one workspace. Run with Docker · Try the live demo · Read the docs Why Memos? Capture quickly — Write in Markdown, attach media, and save without choosing a title, folder, or template. Organize lightly — Revisit notes through the timeline, search, tags, and pins…
read the full Memos overview →
About GitJournal
Mobile first Markdown Notes integrated with Git Summary GitJournal is a note taking app focused on privacy and data portability. It stores all its notes in a standardized Markdown + YAML header format (optional). The notes are stored in a Git Repo of your choice GitHub / Gitlab / Custom provider. This means you can easily self host or host your notes in one of the many Git providers. Screenshots Migrating from Existing Apps Google Keep Day One Classic Narrate Simplenote Contributing Please feel free to open an issue for any bug or feature request. Additionally, you can vote on existing Issues by reacting with a…
read the full GitJournal overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or GitJournal more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and GitJournal has 4,246. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and GitJournal free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and GitJournal under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and GitJournal?
Memos is written in Go and GitJournal in Dart. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Memos or GitJournal?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose GitJournal if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.