head to head · open source
Memos vs Tolaria
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Tolaria has 20,423 stars, 1,409 forks, 49 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Memos leads on adoption by 215% (64,235 vs 20,423 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; Tolaria is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Tolaria 7%. Tolaria 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 | Tolaria | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 20K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 1.4K |
| 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 Tolaria if
- You want the Tolaria feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Tolaria 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 Tolaria
💧 Tolaria Tolaria is a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux for managing markdown knowledge bases . People use it for a variety of use cases: Operate second brains and personal knowledge Organize company docs as context for AI Store OpenClaw/assistants memory and procedures Personally, I use it to run my life (hey 👋 Luca here). I have a massive workspace of 10,000+ notes, which are the result of my Refactoring work + a ton of personal journaling and second braining . Sponsors Tolaria is supported by a small panel of tools that help keep the project healthy, tested, and ready for AI assisted development. I…
read the full Tolaria overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or Tolaria more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and Tolaria has 20,423. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and Tolaria free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and Tolaria under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and Tolaria?
Memos is written in Go and Tolaria in TypeScript. 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 Tolaria?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Tolaria if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.