head to head · open source
Memos vs kition
Memos has 63,930 GitHub stars, 4,869 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kition has 520 stars, 39 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped today. Memos leads on adoption by 12,194% (63,930 vs 520 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; kition is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kition 8%. kition was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (markdown, note-taking), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Memos | kition | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 520 |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-19 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 39 |
| 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 kition if
- You want the kition feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and kition 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 kition
Kition English · 简体中文 · Русский · 日本語 · Tiếng Việt · Français · Deutsch · Español Documents, Tables, Whiteboards, Agents, and Workflows in one desktop workspace. Write connected knowledge, think visually, build data tools, research the web, and automate repeatable work. Download Kition Website · Releases · Discussions · Contributing · Support · Security Kition brings Markdown documents, structured table files, an infinite Whiteboard, a tool using AI agent, web research, and visual workflows into one desktop workspace. Instead of making every task begin in a blank chat, Kition gives the Agent editable project…
read the full kition overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Note Taking & Knowledge Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Note Taking & Knowledge Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or kition more popular?
Memos has 63,930 GitHub stars and kition has 520. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and kition free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and kition under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and kition?
Memos is written in Go and kition in TypeScript. 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 kition?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (63,930 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kition if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.