head to head · open source
Memos vs Zotero
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Zotero has 15,838 stars, 1,173 forks, 1,600 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Memos leads on adoption by 306% (64,235 vs 15,838 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; Zotero is written in JavaScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Zotero 7%. Zotero 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 | Zotero | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 16K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 1.2K |
| 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 Zotero if
- You want the Zotero feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Zotero 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 Zotero
Zotero ====== Zotero is a free, easy to use tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources. Please post feature requests or bug reports to the Zotero Forums. If you're having trouble with Zotero, see Getting Help. For more information on how to use this source code, see the Zotero documentation.
read the full Zotero overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or Zotero more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and Zotero has 15,838. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and Zotero free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT, and Zotero has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Memos and Zotero?
Memos is written in Go and Zotero in JavaScript. 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 Zotero?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Zotero if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.