head to head · open source
Memos vs SiYuan
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks, 67 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SiYuan has 47,039 stars, 3,095 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Memos leads on adoption by 37% (64,235 vs 47,039 stars). Memos is written in Go under MIT; SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Memos has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, SiYuan 7%. SiYuan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (markdown, note-taking, self-hosted), 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 | SiYuan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 64K | ★ 47K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.9K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| 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 SiYuan if
- You want the SiYuan 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 SiYuan 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 SiYuan
From thought to insight, with agents English 中文 日本語 Türkçe Table of Contents 💡 Introduction 🔮 Features 🏗️ Architecture and Ecosystem 🗺️ Roadmap 🚀 Download Setup App Market Installation Package Package Manager Docker Hosting Unraid Hosting TrueNAS Hosting Test Channels ⌨️ Command line Interface 🏘️ Community 🛠️ Development Guide ❓ FAQ How does SiYuan store data? Does it support data synchronization through a third party sync disk? Is SiYuan open source? How to upgrade to a new version? What if some blocks (such as paragraph blocks in list items) cannot find the block icon? What should I do if the data repo…
read the full SiYuan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Memos or SiYuan more popular?
Memos has 64,235 GitHub stars and SiYuan has 47,039. Memos has the larger community by that measure.
Are Memos and SiYuan free?
Both are open source. Memos is licensed under MIT and SiYuan under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Memos and SiYuan?
Memos is written in Go and SiYuan 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 SiYuan?
Choose Memos if you want the larger community (64,235 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose SiYuan if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.