head to head · open source
Memos vs MiaoYan
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MiaoYan has 8,721 stars, 522 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Memos leads on adoption by 637% (64,235 vs 8,721 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, MiaoYan 6%. Memos was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (markdown), 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 | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 8.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 522 |
| 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 MiaoYan if
- You want the MiaoYan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and MiaoYan 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…
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About MiaoYan
English 简体中文 MiaoYan Lightweight Markdown note taking app for macOS Features Fantastic : Local first, no data collection, split editor & preview, wikilink backlinks, LaTeX, Mermaid Beautiful : Minimalist design, three column layout, dark mode, macOS 26 glass, distraction free Fast : Swift 6 native, better performance than Electron based apps Simple : Lightweight, version history, keyboard shortcuts, auto formatting Installation 1. Mac App Store (paid, automatic updates): 2. Homebrew : 3. GitHub Releases : download the latest DMG from GitHub Releases (macOS 11.5+) All three options share the same codebase and…
read the full MiaoYan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or MiaoYan more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,721. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and MiaoYan under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and MiaoYan?
Memos is written in Go and MiaoYan in Swift. 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 MiaoYan?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.