head to head · open source
Memos vs MiaoYan
Memos has 63,155 GitHub stars, 4,769 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MiaoYan has 8,646 stars, 511 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. Memos leads on adoption by 630% (63,155 vs 8,646 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 | ★ 63K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.8K | ⑂ 511 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Memos if
- You weight community size — 63K 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
Memos is an open source, self hosted note taking tool designed for rapid capture of short form content like daily logs, links, code snippets, and microblog style entries. It lives in the Go ecosystem and uses a Markdown native, timeline based interface. Unlike traditional note apps that enforce folders or rigid templates, Memos prioritizes speed and simplicity: users write in Markdown, attach media, and save without selecting titles or locations.
read the full Memos overview →
About MiaoYan
MiaoYan is a lightweight, local first Markdown note taking app for macOS, written in Swift and released under the MIT licence, aimed at people who want fast plain text notes on their own disk without accounts, telemetry, or a hosted service.
read the full MiaoYan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or MiaoYan more popular?
Memos has 63,155 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,646. 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 (63,155 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.