Livebook vs Memos
| Tagline | Collaborative Elixir notebooks with live code execution, Mermaid diagrams, and TeX | Lightweight, self-hosted note-taking and memo hub |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion | Evernote, Notion |
| GitHub stars | 5.8k | 61k |
| Language | Elixir | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | yesterday | 3 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Livebook
- Exclusively supports Elixir; no Python, R, or Julia kernels unlike Jupyter
- Not a general-purpose note-taking tool — unsuitable as a Notion replacement for non-developers
- No persistent database-style pages, kanban boards, or project management views
- Community plugin ecosystem is smaller than Jupyter's
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
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Memos for the larger community and ecosystem. Livebook has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Livebook
Collaborative Elixir notebooks with live code execution, Mermaid diagrams, and TeX