Memos review
A flexible open-source choice for self-hosted notes, search, sharing, and offline capture.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Memos is an open-source, self-hosted note-taking application for personal journals, daily logs, links, snippets, and lightweight team spaces. It stores notes as Markdown and organizes them in a chronological timeline, with full-text search, tags, attachments, visibility controls, share links, and web clipping to source-linked Markdown. It fits individuals and small teams that want control over where notes are hosted, while its Windows, macOS, Linux, web, and Chrome extension access supports a range of working environments.
Pricing is straightforward: the Memos software plan costs $0 with every feature included, no seat pricing, no usage fee, and an MIT license. The published plan also makes clear that Memos is software you run yourself. Infrastructure, domain, backup, and storage costs sit outside the product, so the practical cost depends on the environment used for deployment and storage. Support for SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL gives administrators database options, while Docker-based deployment provides the stated route for running the application.
The feature set is broad for timeline-oriented notes. Markdown syntax highlighting, tables, LaTeX math, images, videos, audio, and document attachments cover more than plain text capture. Offline Progressive Web App functionality supports access without a constant connection, and visibility controls, share links, and Spaces extend the product beyond a private journal. API, MCP, Telegram Bot, webhook, and web-clipping integrations make it suitable for connected workflows. Choose Memos if self-hosting, open-source licensing, and private timeline organization matter most. Choose another app if you want a fully managed service or collaboration centered on real-time co-editing.
Memos pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free MIT-licensed software with every feature included
- Markdown timeline notes with search, tags, and rich attachments
- Offline PWA access plus API, MCP, Telegram, and webhook integrations
- Where it doesn't
- Infrastructure, domain, backup, and storage costs are separate
- Self-hosting requires managing your own deployment and infrastructure
- Collaboration is centered on lightweight shared spaces
Memos fact sheet, pricing and score →
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