head to head
Notion vs Memos
Memos is the open source alternative to Notion — all-in-one workspace for notes, docs, wikis, and databases. Here is the honest comparison.
Yes — Memos is a viable free replacement for Notion. Memos is open source under MIT, written in Go, with 64,235 GitHub stars, 4,935 forks and 67 open issues; it was last pushed 21 hours ago. Notion costs from $10, while self-hosting Memos carries no licence fee — the trade is your operational time instead of a subscription. 6 other open source Notion alternatives are tracked here, led by AppFlowy at 78,112 stars. Memos ranks #3 of 7 tracked open source Notion alternatives by stars. The tracked set, by adoption: AppFlowy (78,112 stars), Affine (74,123 stars), SiYuan (47,039 stars), Logseq (45,460 stars), Outline (41,145 stars), AnyType (9,039 stars). Replacement criteria on this page: 4 reasons to move to Memos and 3 reasons to stay on Notion.
choose Memos if
- Your Notion bill is growing with seats or usage
- You need your data in a format and server you control
- Your compliance posture requires auditing the code that touches sensitive data
- You have (or can rent) a server and basic Docker comfort
stick with Notion if
- You need the polished onboarding and support SLAs of a commercial vendor
- Your team has zero capacity to operate software, even self-hosted-simple
- You depend on a Notion integration ecosystem that the OSS alternatives have not replicated
Side by side
| Memos (open source) | Notion | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free (self-hosted) | $10-$18/user/month |
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Source code | Public, auditable | Closed |
| Self-hosting | Yes — usememos/memos | Cloud only |
| Data ownership | Your server, your format | Vendor's cloud |
| Community | ★ 64K · ⑂ 4.9K | — |
| Built with | Go | — |
Why people look for a Notion alternative
About Memos
Memos is an open source, self hosted note taking tool designed for rapid capture of short form content like daily logs, links, code snippets, and microblog style entries. It lives in the Go ecosystem and uses a Markdown native, timeline based interface. Unlike traditional note apps that enforce folders or rigid templates, Memos prioritizes speed and simplicity: users write in Markdown, attach media, and save without selecting titles or locations.
read the full Memos overview →
Other open source alternatives to Notion
last updated nightly · ranking method: github stars, live-tracked
Frequently asked questions
Is Memos a good replacement for Notion?
Memos is an open source alternative to Notion (All-in-one workspace for notes, docs, wikis, and databases). It is written in Go and licensed under MIT, with 64,235 GitHub stars.
Is Memos free compared to Notion?
Yes. Memos is open source — there is no licence fee, and you can self-host it. Notion is typically a paid subscription, so the trade-off is licence cost against the operational work of running it yourself.
How do I migrate from Notion to Memos?
Migration effort depends on the data formats involved. Check Memos's documentation for import options, and compare the feature table above to confirm the capabilities you depend on are covered before switching.