head to head · open source
Memos vs mindforger
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mindforger has 2,724 stars, 173 forks, 625 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Memos leads on adoption by 2,258% (64,235 vs 2,724 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; mindforger is written in C++ under GPL-2.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, mindforger 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 | mindforger | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 2.7K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 173 |
| 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 mindforger if
- You want the mindforger feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and mindforger 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 mindforger
Thinking Notebook & Markdown Editor Are you drowning in information , but starving for knowledge ? Where do you keep your private remarks like ideas, personal plans, gift tips, how tos, dreams, business vision, finance strategy, auto coaching notes? Loads of documents, sketches and remarks spread around the file system, cloud, web and Post it notes? Are you afraid of your knowledge privacy ? Are you able to find them once you create them? Do you know how are they mutually related when you read or write them? No? Thinking Notebook MindForger is human mind inspired personal knowledge management tool. Markdown…
read the full mindforger overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or mindforger more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and mindforger has 2,724. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and mindforger free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and mindforger under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and mindforger?
Memos is written in Go and mindforger in C++. 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 mindforger?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mindforger if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.