head to head · open source
Memos vs Lorien
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Lorien has 6,871 stars, 315 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. Memos leads on adoption by 835% (64,235 vs 6,871 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; Lorien is written in GDScript under MIT. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Lorien 5%. Memos was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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.
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Side by side
| Memos | Lorien | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 6.9K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | GDScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-09-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 315 |
| 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 Lorien if
- You want the Lorien feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches GDScript
- You evaluated both and Lorien 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 Lorien
Lorien Lorien is an infinite canvas drawing/note taking app that is focused on performance, small savefiles and simplicity . It's not based on bitmap images like Krita, Gimp or Photoshop; it rather saves brush strokes as a collection of points and renders them at runtime (kind of like SVG). It's primarily designed to be used as a digital notebook and as brainstorming tool. While it can totally be used to make small sketches and diagrams, it is not meant to replace traditional art programs that operate on bitmap images. It is entirely written in the Godot Game Engine. For an overview on how to use Lorien have a…
read the full Lorien overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or Lorien more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and Lorien has 6,871. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and Lorien free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and Lorien under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and Lorien?
Memos is written in Go and Lorien in GDScript. 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 Lorien?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Lorien if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.