head to head · open source
Memos vs Outline
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Outline has 41,145 stars, 3,650 forks, 78 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Memos leads on adoption by 56% (64,235 vs 41,145 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; Outline is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Outline 9%. Outline was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, react), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Memos | Outline | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 41K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 3.6K |
| 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 Outline if
- You want the Outline feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Outline 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 Outline
A fast, collaborative, knowledge base for your team built using React and Node.js. Try out Outline using our hosted version at www.getoutline.com . This is the source code that runs Outline and all the associated services. If you want to use Outline then you don't need to run this code, A hosted version of the app is offered at getoutline.com. You can also find documentation on using Outline in our guide. If you'd like to run your own copy of Outline or contribute to development then this is the place for you. Installation Please see the documentation for running your own copy of Outline in a production…
read the full Outline overview →
More in Productivity & Utilities
Related comparisons
More Note Taking & Knowledge Management projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Note Taking & Knowledge Management field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or Outline more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and Outline has 41,145. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and Outline free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT, and Outline has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Memos and Outline?
Memos is written in Go and Outline 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 Outline?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Outline if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.