head to head · open source
saber vs IdeaMemo
saber has 4,824 GitHub stars, 374 forks, 401 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. IdeaMemo has 1,158 stars, 164 forks, 12 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. saber leads on adoption by 317% (4,824 vs 1,158 stars). saber is written in Dart under GPL-3.0; IdeaMemo is written in Kotlin under GPL-3.0. saber has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, IdeaMemo 14%. saber was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (android, notes-app), 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
| saber | IdeaMemo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.8K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Dart | Kotlin |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-08-16 |
| Forks | ⑂ 374 | ⑂ 164 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick saber if
- You weight community size — 4.8K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick IdeaMemo if
- You want the IdeaMemo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Kotlin
- You evaluated both and IdeaMemo fits your workflow better
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 →
About IdeaMemo
IdeaMemo is a free, open source Android quick capture memo app written in Kotlin with Jetpack Compose under the GPL 3.0 licence, for Android users who want to record short ideas in a local database and optionally sync them to their own WebDAV cloud.
read the full IdeaMemo 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 saber or IdeaMemo more popular?
saber has 4,824 GitHub stars and IdeaMemo has 1,158. saber has the larger community by that measure.
Are saber and IdeaMemo free?
Both are open source. saber is licensed under GPL-3.0 and IdeaMemo under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between saber and IdeaMemo?
saber is written in Dart and IdeaMemo in Kotlin. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, saber or IdeaMemo?
Choose saber if you want the larger community (4,824 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose IdeaMemo if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.