head to head · open source
Memos vs saber
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. saber has 5,006 stars, 421 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Memos leads on adoption by 1,183% (64,235 vs 5,006 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. The two share 1 topic tag (notes), 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 | saber | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 5.0K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Dart |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 421 |
| 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 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
✨ 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 saber
Saber [ ][google play] [ ][f droid] [ ][app store] [ ][download windows] [ ][flathub] [ ][download appimage] English čeština Deutsch 中文 (简体中文, 中国) 中文 (繁體, 台灣) العربية Tiếng Việt Saber is the notes app built for handwriting. It's designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible, while still delivering unique features that you'll actually use. Additionally, Saber is available across all your devices, large and small, and syncs between them seamlessly. Notably, it can invert your notes when you're in dark mode. This allows you to write with white ink on a black background, which is much easier on the eyes in low…
read the full saber overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or saber more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and saber has 5,006. 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 (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose saber if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.