Memos

Memos is a privacy‑first, self‑hosted knowledge management platform that blends the simplicity of Markdown editing with a lightweight Go backend and a modern React frontend. From a developer’s perspective, the application is engineered to be fast, resource‑efficient, and easily extensible. The core goal is to let teams or individuals own their data without relying on proprietary cloud services, while still providing a rich editing experience that scales from single‑user laptops to distributed Kubernetes clusters.

Technical Stack & Architecture

• Backend – Written in Go (1.21+), the server exposes a RESTful API and a WebSocket channel for real‑time collaboration. The Go ecosystem’s strong static typing, goroutine concurrency model, and minimal runtime footprint make it an ideal fit for low‑latency note operations.
• Frontend – A single‑page application built with React 18 and TypeScript, leveraging Vite for fast dev builds. The UI is intentionally minimalistic: a sidebar for tags and recent notes, an editor pane that renders Markdown with syntax highlighting via PrismJS, and a toolbar for quick actions.
• Database – Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL/MariaDB, and SQLite (for local dev). All data is stored in relational tables; the schema is intentionally simple: users, memos, tags, and comments. The use of a conventional RDBMS keeps migrations trivial and ensures ACID compliance for note edits.
• Deployment – Docker images are available on Docker Hub (neosmemo/memos), with a multi‑stage build that produces an Alpine‑based binary. The image exposes port 5230 by default and can be run behind any HTTP reverse proxy (NGINX, Caddy) with TLS termination.

Core Capabilities & Developer APIs

• CRUD API – Endpoints for creating, reading, updating, and deleting memos (/api/memos). Each memo supports Markdown content, tags, and optional metadata.
• Search & Filtering – Full‑text search powered by PostgreSQL’s tsvector or MySQL full‑text indexes, with support for tag filtering and date ranges.
• Webhooks – Developers can register HTTP callbacks that fire on memo creation or update, enabling integrations with CI/CD pipelines, chat ops, or external indexing services.
• Export/Import – JSON and Markdown export formats allow for backup or migration to other knowledge bases.
• Auth & RBAC – JWT‑based authentication with optional OAuth2 provider support (e.g., GitHub, Google). Role‑based access control can be extended via the API to restrict memo visibility per team or project.

Deployment & Infrastructure

Memos is designed for zero‑configuration self‑hosting. A single Docker run or a Helm chart on Kubernetes can bring the service online in under five minutes. Because the backend is stateless (aside from database persistence), horizontal scaling is straightforward: multiple replicas behind a load balancer can share the same PostgreSQL instance. For environments that demand high availability, the application supports connection pooling and read‑replica configurations out of the box.

The minimal resource profile (≈ 50 MiB RAM for the container, 1 CPU core) makes it suitable for Raspberry Pi deployments or edge devices. On the other hand, the same image can be deployed on a cloud VM with 4 GB RAM and scale to thousands of concurrent users without code changes.

Integration & Extensibility

While Memos ships with a robust feature set, its architecture encourages extensibility:

• Plugin System – The backend exposes hooks (beforeSave, afterDelete) that can be implemented in Go modules and compiled into the binary.
• Custom Scripts – Administrators can inject custom JavaScript at startup to modify the UI or add new menu items.
• API Extensions – Because the API is RESTful, third‑party services (e.g., Slack bots, GitHub Actions) can consume or push data seamlessly.
• Webhooks & Event Bus – Integration with message queues (Kafka, NATS) is possible by consuming the webhook payloads.

Developer Experience

The project follows best practices for open‑source software: a comprehensive docs/ folder, a living README, and an active Discord community for real‑time support. The codebase is well‑structured into internal/ packages, with clear separation of concerns (handlers, services, persistence). Tests cover critical paths in both Go and React, ensuring that new contributors can run go test ./... and npm test locally.

Configuration is driven by environment variables (MEMOS_DB_URL, MEMOS_SECRET_KEY) and a simple YAML file for advanced settings. The documentation includes detailed examples for Docker Compose, Helm, and manual binary deployment, making it approachable for both hobbyists and enterprise teams.

Use Cases & Advantages

• Developer Documentation – Teams can host a lightweight internal wiki that integrates with issue trackers via webhooks.
• Personal Knowledge Base – Individuals can run Memos on a home server or NAS, keeping notes offline and encrypted.
• Education & Research – Universities can deploy Memos for lecture notes, research logs, and collaborative writing without exposing data to commercial clouds.
• Compliance‑Heavy Industries – The self‑hosted nature satisfies GDPR and HIPAA requirements by keeping data within controlled environments.

Compared to commercial note‑taking services, Memos offers performance (Go’s low latency), flexibility (full database control, custom integrations), and **