Joplin vs Memos
| Tagline | Open-source note-taking app with end-to-end encrypted sync | Lightweight, self-hosted note-taking and memo hub |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Evernote, Obsidian | Evernote, Notion |
| GitHub stars | 56k | 63k |
| Language | TypeScript | Go |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | yesterday | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Joplin
- The note editor is more basic than Notion-style block editors.
- No real-time collaborative editing; sync is eventual.
- No relational database or board views.
- Self-hosted Joplin Server setup and multi-user management is less polished than the apps.
Memos
- Designed for short notes/memos, not long structured documents or wikis.
- No nested page hierarchy, databases, or board views.
- No real-time collaboration.
- Limited rich formatting compared to block editors.
Bottom line
Choose Memos if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Memos for the larger community and ecosystem. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.