Memos
FreeSelf-hosted quick notes — open it and write, no titles or folders
A lightweight self-hosted note service whose interface is a chronological stream of entries, written much like a short post. It supports Markdown, tags, to-dos and attachments, stores data in SQLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL on your own server, and deploys with a single Docker command.
Why we picked it
MIT, 63,307 stars.
Its own site puts the positioning plainly: not a workspace, not a second brain. Memos does one
narrow thing — capture the thought, link or to-do that just occurred to you. There are no folders
and no mandatory titles. Type into the box, hit save, and it lands on the timeline; you find it
again through #tags and search. Anyone who has used a quick-capture notes app will feel at home,
with the difference that the data is yours.
Deployment is one command:
docker run -d --name memos -p 5230:5230 -v ~/.memos/:/var/opt/memos neosmemo/memos:stable
SQLite is the default and everything lives in the mounted directory, so backing up means copying it. The site states there is no third-party cloud or telemetry by default. REST and gRPC APIs are available, so iOS Shortcuts, scripts and browser extensions can all write into it.
To be clear about:
- You need your own server or an always-on machine, and capturing from your phone anywhere means exposing it to the internet or pairing it with a mesh network like Tailscale.
- There is no official mobile app. On phones you can use the web version, or the third-party client Moe Memos for iOS and Android.
- It is still 0.x, and release notes for recent major versions include breaking changes. Back up the data directory before upgrading.
- It is not meant for long documents or knowledge bases; that is what Obsidian and Joplin are for.