head to head · open source
Memos vs saber
Memos has 63,155 GitHub stars, 4,769 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. saber has 4,815 stars, 371 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Memos leads on adoption by 1,212% (63,155 vs 4,815 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; saber is written in Dart under GPL-3.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, saber 8%. Memos was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | saber | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 63K | ★ 4.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.8K | ⑂ 371 |
| 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 saber if
- You want the saber feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You evaluated both and saber 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 saber
Saber is a cross platform, open source handwriting notes app for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows, built for students, professionals and anyone else who writes by hand on a screen and wants their notes to stay on their own terms.
read the full saber overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or saber more popular?
Memos has 63,155 GitHub stars and saber has 4,815. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and saber free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and saber under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and saber?
Memos is written in Go and saber in Dart. 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 saber?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (63,155 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose saber if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.