Caute and Basic Memory.
Basic Memory keeps what you and your assistants write as Markdown files on your own disk. Caute keeps a library on its server, of notes and of everything you caught. If you want it all local, Basic Memory is built for that.
In their words
“Knowledge Management. AI Native.”
From basicmemory.com
Side by side
- Where it lives
- Basic Memory: Markdown files on your own disk, open in any editor
- Caute: Caute's server; caute sync keeps your notes as Markdown in a folder, both ways
- Price
- Basic Memory: Local free; Cloud from $15 a seat a month
- Caute: Free; Pro $8 a month or $72 a year
- Source code
- Basic Memory: Open source, under the AGPL
- Caute: Not open source; the card format is open, and the command line is MIT-licensed
- Assistants
- Basic Memory: Claude, Codex, Cursor, ChatGPT and anything that speaks MCP
- Caute: Claude, ChatGPT and any assistant that takes an MCP server
Checked 2026-10-25.
What is the same
- Both give your assistants a memory they read and write over MCP.
- Both keep notes as Markdown you can take anywhere.
- Both work beside Obsidian.
Stay with Basic Memory if
- You want everything local, as plain files on your own disk, with nothing on a server.
- You want code you can read and change.
Move to Caute if
- You keep sources as well as notes: pages, PDFs, email and recordings, each kept as it was caught.
- You want each memory beside the page or passage it was learned from, with the page kept as it was caught.
- You want to find the sentence by what it means, across everything you caught.
- You want to see which assistant read which card, and limit what each may read.
Moving from Basic Memory
- Zip your Basic Memory folder, by default basic-memory in your home folder.
- In Caute, open Settings, then Import a library, and choose Import from Markdown or Obsidian.
- Choose the zip. Each file becomes a note, and [[links]] between them become links in Caute.
Questions
Can I keep my notes as files too?
Yes. caute sync keeps your Caute notes as Markdown in a folder you choose, both ways: edit a note there and it is saved in Caute, and a new file becomes a note.
Who can see what I bring across?
Only you. It lands in your private inbox, and nothing is shared until you move it into a shared space.
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