Damn this looks cool but it’s got a customer noncompete, “you will not (and will not enable others to) use the AI Features: (e) for the development of any service or other offering that competes with or replicates the Services.”

That’s real bad since they also write “ Memex may generate aggregate, deidentified data from your use of the Services and Subscriber Data ("Usage Data") and use it to operate, improve and support the Services”

AKA “we can learn from your codebase and you aren’t allowed to compete with us”

Basically, it’s a brain-rape machine for idiots who don’t read the fine print. Sad

HN Community: We had this clause in our Terms and Conditions: "you will not (and will not enable others to) use the AI Features: (e) for the development of any service or other offering that competes with or replicates the Services.”

That clause was boilerplate our lawyers included, and it doesn't reflect how we operate or what we intend to enforce. I should have caught it, but I missed it.

The terms and conditions are now updated to not include a anti-competition clause.

thanks for calling this out

To be 100% clear: we do not prevent anyone from using Memex to build a Memex competitor. That clause was boilerplate our lawyers included, and it doesn't reflect how we operate or what we intend to enforce. I should have caught it and we'll fix it.

On the Usage Data side, your code is never stored anywhere other than your machine when you use Memex. And you can enable "Privacy mode" to not have your prompts stored either.

> On the Usage Data side, your code is never stored anywhere other than your machine when you use Memex. And you can enable "Privacy mode" to not have your prompts stored either.

It would be nice if there's some kind of auto-censoring of secrets if sharing code etc, cursor handling of this is very bad bc if I block .env files, then i can't never add them as context and it thinks they dont exist, instaed of knowing they're secrets and to be treated as such.

hoping a less binary solution for controlling what gets shared and not is possibe

That's a good feature idea and something we've considered but not gotten around to yet.

We do have a secrets mgmt feature that uses keyring, so you can store secrets through the app in your system keychain, which then requires your approval before Memex uses it.

We're hoping to make that feature easier to use with MCP

> I should have caught it and we'll fix it.

That's a great reply and hoping for it to give memex a try, not that i want to give a competitor but I can use and give back to OpenAIs codex codebase because its MIT, it would suck to use an app you cannot modify for your own pleasure or build your own specific itching solving version of, most so as a tool for builders

That's fair. We do plan to open source components of Memex to allow for extensibility while also having a strong enough revenue model to build without being fully dependent on VCs

I can respect that, maybe just an sdk and plugin architecture or hooks is fine too.

will check memex out and give any concrete feedback on that regards if i have it

thanks!

I think using the name Memex for "a tool for vibe coding" is a big mistake, especially if you have more general ambitions. Vannevar Bush says in As We May Think: “Consider a future device … in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

The word memex is from memory expansion - "mem" and "ex".

Do you want to confuse an intimate, personal memory tool with vibe coding?

Do you think closed source freemium SaaS with cloud hosted models is suitable for intimate personal mind expanding cognitive augmentation?

Your comment is fair. I don't love vibe coding as a category name. And somehow using vibe coding to describe something whose namesake, the Memex, had such virtuous ambitions feels cheap. But I ALSO want people to understand what our product does.

I want to make something that truly empowers people. Many of our users are tech savvy, but not coders. We decided to make a GUI because it allowed them to one-click install.

And we are closed source freemium right now because we're trying to find a revenue model that we can sustain ourselves with without being wholly dependent on VCs. We plan to open source components of Memex so it's more extensible in the future and to give back.

We were never going to have something that is worthy of the name memex on the first release. But our ambition is that with time and hard work, we have a chance.

Vibe coding is fine but right now it dominates the pitch, and it's a stark contrast to Vannevar Bush's grand vision of memory expansion. Even if you want it to be more, the pitch makes the name hard to justify and could harm trust building. I understand your dilemma with open-source licensing, but being closed source is not the core issue.

Bush described a Memex as a private and personal tool. But right now, your tool depends on cloud-hosted LLMs, and the cloud is not private. With nothing to prevent mandated access, an intimate mind mirror is problematic. In some places, people can get into serious legal trouble for visiting a doctor, favouring a political cause, who they're attracted to... Not having a solution could scare potential users away. The name raises expectations that conflict with the product pitch, which is confusing and makes it harder to trust the product. That said, you could still launch with API support for private local LLM endpoints, like Ollama and other OpenAI-style APIs. Do you have support for that already? If so, pointing that out could help. The name has serious weight, and if people don't see it as living up to it, don't you think that you might be better off avoiding the expectations it invites? You could adjust the branding, or change the pitch, and work on building trust. I would suggest considering doing all 3!

Memex as a name for a "vibe coding" platform is just trolling.

> Agent uses a mix of Sonnet 3.7 + Haiku

And only on the enterprise plan you're allowed to use other models.

Thanks but I'll stick with Aider.

thanks for the feedback. To understand the preference - would you prefer to (1) bring your own keys or (2) use different models?

Regarding (2), we haven't supported other models yet because they each come with their own peculiarities regarding system prompting / tool use / etc. By focusing on just Sonnet+Haiku, it's allowed us to focus more time on other features (e.g. checkpointing ...).

Regarding BYOKs - a lot of our beta users didn't actually have keys setup, so it was easier for them to get started without bringing their own keys. The folks that have been interested in BYOKs have mainly wanted to bring their Bedrock/Vertex keys and are interested in enterprise/team features. Hence structuring it this way.

But we're posting here to get feedback and we are willing to make changes :)

Where I work, our legal department requires making use of LLMs only through our own contractual relationships with model providers. Given that, BYOK is table stakes for me at least.

Litellm is what we use internally, so we can support any LLM backend with any open source tool, and create virtual keys for each developer to monitor and manage usage limits etc.

helpful context.

yeah - we want to get the BYOK support to be self-service but we just prioritized other things based on user feedback.

thanks again for the context.

> (2) use different models?

Primarily this. Models are evolving fast, every 2 months we see a model emerging with new interesting features. I want to be able to easily switch and try them.

Got it. Helpful.

Our roadmap is essentially this: [1] Additional model support (e.g. Gemini 2.5). [2] MCP support. [3] Computer use.

so in the near future we aim to have the top agentic coding models supported

Bringing your keys is critical for any enterprise use. I’m surprised you have users at Google since utilizing non-gemini models there is a no-no. I would love to try, but as the other user said we use litellm so there isn’t any way to use this. The big plus with Claude code is it allows bedrock use. Codex works with litellm assuming you disable the responses. I don’t think you can reasonably call this a CC competitor until you allow for more open use. I get that it messes up making money — but both codex/cc don’t require I I sign up for anything extra.

thanks - yeah, we've heard this feedback loud and clear from the HN community.

We're cooking

HN Community:

We had this clause in our Terms and Conditions: "you will not (and will not enable others to) use the AI Features: (e) for the development of any service or other offering that competes with or replicates the Services.”

That clause was boilerplate our lawyers included, and it doesn't reflect how we operate or what we intend to enforce. I should have caught it, but I missed it.

The terms and conditions are now updated to not include a anti-competition clause.

I've been having a blast using Claude Code lately, I've spun about 3 fully functional mini apps I had in the backlog for ages and didnt wanted to touch because of boilerplate and really not feeling the love for the functionality.

I've installed this and will give it a try... these tools are so much fun to work with once you know how to build with them and you understand the limitations as well.

Thank you! Yes - there are definitely limitations. We are bullish on models getting better and we're hoping to add features that make it easier for folks to do more.

Looking forward to your feedback!

What sort of cost have you experienced with Claude Code? Ie API usage costs.

Mind describing your workflow?

So far about 200US.

My workload is:

- clone my Rails boilerplate (simple app skeleton with: auth [rolify, devise, devise-passwordless], vite [tailwind, flowbite], friendly urls, pagy, ransack, and smtp). I've got a few sample pages and user profile edit along with an administrative area for user and role management. That's it.

- bring in Claude Code and ask to gonthrought the codename to get familiar.

- obviously by now I know what I want to build and i have got my scope written down or I just know it by heart.

- I divide the scope in portions that I feel are the logical trayection of the app, so my instructions make sense, we don't build models ahead of models that are dependant on the former.

- start passing instructions to build the app block by block. Model to model...

- finally add things like email notifications for which I would pass every single controller action I want a notification for. Everything generic with a wide spread in the app goes in this phase.

That's more or less it... like I said, I've build a few fully functional prod read apps so far.

Initial impression is good.

Few feedback items:

1. Its hard to get a sense of what task is being worked if you migrate back to the main page then come back to a running task. You kind just have to figure it out and hope its still running.

2. I wish you could opt into a global `git diff` view. Saying here's what we modified in the last iteration.

3. Also for local runs I'd greater prefer if it'd prompt confirmation before executing something I haven't seen yet. Essentially on a real piece of code you'd have to make sure you're 100% in a sandbox so you don't bork things for other developers.

4. ctr+c killing the current operation definitely happened on accident trying to copy another prompt.

5. It'd be really nice if it was git-aware. E.g. when files are finalized they're committed to whichever branch and uncommitted files are considered work in progress.

thanks - great feedback

on (1) re: multi tasking ... that's a known UX limitation. You can "command+click" the logo in the top left to open a new window, then just keep the convos open. That's the way to multi-task with it today. We definitely want to clean this up in a future version.

(2) noted - yeah, a global git diff is a good feature request

on (3) in the settings (wrench icon) there's a toggle for "Manual" code execution. To be clear - you also want to be able to approve file edits, not just command execution?

(4) doh - that's a good point

(5) we actually run a shadow git repo that commits on every turn the agent takes. It's aware of your .gitignore too. We only expose checkpoints on user messages right now, but we're planning on doing more on this front.

Could you clarify the terms of service?

From https://memex.tech/termsandconditions : "use and access the Services for Subscriber's personal, non-commercial use."

So we can't use Memex for paid apps?

That's vibe legalese probably

You can use it for paid apps, open source apps. Whatever you want. Everything you create with Memex is 100% yours.

That clause is only meant to keep people from reselling our app, Memex, itself. But I agree it's super confusingly written and we're going to fix that.

What does "not opinionated" mean in this context? It doesn't appear that I can give it my API key of the AI service and my choice.

in this context, not opionionated == you can use it to build with Rails, FastAPI, Firebase, python + modal ... whatever tech stack you want to use. Some will work better than others just due to the nature of the LLMs.

We've heard loud and clear from the HN community that bringing your own key is important, and we're going to fix that.

Regarding multiple models -- that's next up in the roadmap. We're a small team - we were three and just had two more join recently. So we decided to add checkpoints / shadow git repo before adding multiple model support.

(p.s. sorry this comment got buried!)

There a quite a few "Memex is similar to" Cursor, Claude Code, Trae etc etc here. But I couldn't find "Memex is better than...because..."

What's the elevator pitch for why a vibe coder should use Memex rather than Roo, Cline, Trae, Cursor, Windsurf and the countless others that I've already forgotten about

Thanks

Memex makes it easy to ideate, research, and build projects without writing a line of code. It's a fully chat based interface (not an IDE). Its GUI allows you to visualize data inline, perform deep research-esque queries, and create + run programs. It supports any programming language / tech stack that LLMs "know". It also comes with pre-built templates that allow you go from 0-60 on your project quickly.

To be precise (reminding HN is a trust source, with respects): Memex is not a Claude Code alternative. Memex is not built on Rust+Tauri. And: Memex is not for vibe coding (!). Memex is the opposite of what memex.tech say it is what looks like a joke - using that name memex.tech "is just trolling".

Hi @thro1 - this is my first post to the HN community. Memex is something I and my cofounders have worked hard on. While I expected some trolling, your comment is just baffling.

To anyone reading this exchange: I wrote the Show HN attempting to be as clear and to the point as possible according to the "Show HN" guidelines. And everything I wrote is factual. It's available for free for you to try yourself on our website.

It's confabulated. (With AI?) - The missing word is: transclusion.

Actually, what we have here instead: memex.tech as a simulacrum of the Memex Opposite.

What Memex is indeed (not fake): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex

- something like discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18635123 (Getting to Xanadu) (WiP never ended)

is this a Claude Code alternative? seems way more GUI-focused

Codex is OSS (and Aider of course) and serve as decent alternatives

It is an agentic coding tool at its core, so yes - I'd say it's fair to call it a Claude Code alternative.

Regarding the GUI focus: we did that so it's more approachable to both tech folks and people not as accustomed to using a terminal (e.g. PMs, sales engineers, etc.). But a lot of our beta users are devs.

Also, when using its agentic search and data viz capabilities, some users prefer to not do that in the terminal.

sure I’d just say it’s a Cursor alternative :shrug:

Fair

Could you explain how/when you rely on Haiku vs Sonnet or how the two models work together?

Looking forward to testing Memex, anything that goes beyond a VSCode fork automatically catches my attention, completely regardless of LLM support.

We use Haiku for a bunch of small things ... naming a conversation, naming a project (if you don't provide a name), compressing long conversations to manage context window ...

Sonnet is the real workhorse, though. E.g., for all the thinking and tool use

Thanks and looking forward to any feedback you have! It was definitely a lift+risk to start from scratch instead of forking.

Looks interesting but desperately needs out-of-the-box support for BYOK. Just being able to swap between models (Sonnet, Gemini 2.5 Pro, etc.) in agentic systems like Cline, Aider, etc. is a huge deal.

This looks interesting but I'm able to use Claude Code w/ Sonnet 3.7 via AWS credits. If that's only available in an enterprise plan here, I won't be trying this.

thanks - yeah, we've heard this feedback loud and clear from the HN community.

We're cooking

Hey, there's a really cool new tool that you could use to add this feature, I think it was called 'memex' or something like that.

(sorry couldn't resist)

Been playing around with this for a day and found it intuitive and fun to use. A little scary on the "but how much will this cost me if this becomes a frequently-used tool?" question. Can't wait to point this at local models, too!

How does it compare to just using Roo or Cline in VSCode?

The main difference is that Memex isn't an IDE. It's a chat-based, full agentic coding experience. You can see the code it creates, but you can't edit it (yet).

It's not for everyone, but as agentic coding gets better we expect it will become a more common usage pattern.

Oh wow okay, yeah big difference.

used cursor to finally start a project which otherwise i would not have started (very good!)

I spent probably 80% of the time manually refactoring the dreadful spaghetti code and dead code it generated. This was with Claude sonnet as well.

It feels as if you make tremendous progress initially, only to be hampered afterwards. Is this inherent to vibe coding, or am I just doing it wrong?

That sounds right to me for AI generated code depending on the complexity. It can be very hit and miss. I generate small snippets and inspect when I use AI, so I don’t vibe code really. I find the more code is produced, the higher likelihood for hallucinations and weird hard to catch bugs.

Can you build open source memex clone with it?

well, maybe not a full clone (yet). But it can one-shot Tauri apps pretty well :)

What's the association with Google? I ask this because you feature the Google logo prominently on the landing page.

We have users at Google that use Memex

Just to be sure, same with Samsung, Harvard, UCLA? It means that someone once signed up with an email address from the organization? You can just do that?

In general, we can't see what users are doing. But we can see some things like that they upgrade to new releases. We only site users @ logos that are using it on a consistent basis

Are you suggesting that people are committing code into google / samsung / salesforce codebase using Anthropic / Sonnet?

we can't see their activity other than that they have accounts and have used it.

In the case of Google, we've had folks from both PM & engineering. We've talked with our PM user who has been using for prototyping.

What exactly are you providing here that requires a paid subscription? Why not just pass through provider API keys?

side question, how did you guys embed python into rust ? I was looking at the same problem a week ago.

We use Tauri's "sidecar" feature

https://v1.tauri.app/v1/guides/building/sidecar/

planning to open source this project ?

We're planning to open source some components but not the full app.

Today, all of our templates are open source and we plan to keep it that way and grow them over time.

https://github.com/orgs/memextech/repositories

I'll need a very compelling reason to install a binary on my system.

That's fair! We're hoping to make Memex compelling :) thanks for the feedback

No comparative advantage against established players. I recommend hiring a designer as well. Sorry!

I suppose you copy and paste this for each startup launch you see?

Congrats David on your launch! Memex was helped us with a research project accepted last year.

I thought vibe coding was a joke / meme now

Correct - not a VS Code fork. Built it from the ground up with TS+Rust+Python and Tauri

and thanks! we'd love to hear feedback!

Warning. This thread spread misinformation.

And most of comments here (unknowingly?) validate some fake reality, with HN reputation.

What Memex is indeed (not fake): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memex .

Moreover, what's presented here with the same name is the opposite of the memex idea and is it's pollution.

Dang: I don't see it fit HN being used in such way - with the submission title saying something that's not true left just like that.

Honestly I hear you on this one. But the market has really taken up "vibe coding", so it's been the easiest way to clearly communicate to people what Memex does.

Our namesake is Vannevar Bush's "Memex": https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-m...

We like the ethos of peaceful scientific progress.

And we're most passionate about advancing technological progress, which is what the original Memex aimed to do by increasing scientists' productivity.

Our Memex is a small contribution to technological progress, but it's one I am at least proud to make

That's like calling a CRM app "Wiki" because you like the idea of collaborative editing of knowledge (in a world where Wikipedia already exists and is synonymous with wikipedia.org). Like... sure, no one can stop you, but it seems both counterproductive to your own marketing and mildly disrespectful to the other projects that are closer to the original ethos behind the name. It's not that hard to name things uniquely, at least call it "Memexa Code" or something.

Geez, thank you for taking the time to write that!

Seconded, very much. I Ctrl-f'd for "Bush", because in my head I immediately went, awh no, I bet it's going to be something a million miles away from what Vannevar Bush was trying to describe.

I strongly dislike when people naming things just pick something from the past to squat and vibe off. Have some respect for the legends of yesteryear, don't simply squat their concept-names with some very tangentially related product. Pick a different vibe. As my co-commenter said, even just put a tiny spin on it, to leave the original word unassaulted.

Is it just me or does the logo indicate an (uncomfortable) closeness to vscode?

That's probably fair. My only defense is that we are on a shoestring budget and I'm not a designer ...

I admit our branding isn't great. But heck - we pivoted twice in 18 months on just a pre-seed and still have half our cash left.

Hopefully we'll be able to grow and afford a better logo later :)