Comparison

Mem vs Second Brain

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Mem

This app acts as an AI-powered thought partner, capturing and organizing your ideas, meetings, and research. It allows you to use voice to create and edit notes, and an AI assistant can recall, summarize, and reorganize your information. It also surfaces relevant notes automatically and offers powerful search capabilities.

Highlights
  • Voice-to-text note creation and editing
  • AI-powered summarization and recall
  • Automatic organization and structuring of notes
  • Intelligent surfacing of related information
  • Deep search for any note
  • Cross-device synchronization
  • Offline access
Features
Read full description

Mem is your personal AI agent—a chief of staff that builds a living picture of your tasks, projects, and goals, then helps you follow through. Capture notes, meetings, ideas, research, and links without stopping to organize. Mem Agent uses that context to answer questions, recall details, plan, draft, summarize, and move work forward. YOUR WORKSPACE, KEPT FOR YOU Write it down, say it out loud, record a meeting, or save it from another app. Mem keeps everything connected, searchable, and ready when you need it. ASK ANYTIME. SKIP THE BRIEFING. Mem Agent knows the context you have saved, so you can ask what matters now instead of rebuilding the backstory. Recall a detail, summarize a week of meetings, connect related ideas, draft a message, or plan the next step. PROACTIVE WORK THAT SCALES Mem automatically detects and tracks tasks and projects from the notes you create or edit. With Mem Pro, add custom routines that prepare briefings, do research, organize notes, and send scheduled reminders. Connect tools like Gmail, Slack, and Todoist so Mem can use more of your work as context. VOICE NOTES THAT STAY USEFUL Record a thought, meeting, or reminder. Mem keeps the audio and transcript together and helps turn rough input into clear, structured notes. FIND ANYTHING YOU’VE SAVED Search by topic, person, project, or a vague memory. Mem helps retrieve information even when you do not remember the exact wording. CAPTURE FROM ANYWHERE Use Share to Mem to save text, links, webpages, files, and more from other apps. Capture quickly, then return to the work in front of you. AVAILABLE ACROSS YOUR DEVICES Use Mem on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and the web. Work offline on iPhone, then sync when you are connected again. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT Your notes start private. Share them only when you choose. Every plan includes Mem Agent; usage limits vary by plan. Custom routines and connections require Mem Pro or higher. Trial eligibility and pricing are shown in the app. Privacy Policy: https://get.mem.ai/pages/privacy Terms of Service: https://get.mem.ai/pages/terms-of-service

About

Second Brain

Capture thoughts and ideas effortlessly with voice or text input. This app analyzes your weekly entries to provide personalized insights and summaries. It helps you recall past information and manage personal contacts with smart reminders and widgets.

Highlights
  • Weekly self-insight summaries
  • Voice and text note capture
  • Search notes by meaning
  • Contact management with reminders
  • Home and Lock Screen widgets
  • Optional iCloud sync
  • Data export (JSON, Markdown)
Features
Read full description

Most notes get written once and never read again. Second Brain reads them for you. Write a line whenever something is on your mind, and once a week it tells you what your week was really about. You don't need to keep a diary or a streak. One line a day is enough. YOUR WEEK, READ BACK TO YOU The weekly insight covers what took up your attention, what changed since last week, and one concrete thing to try. Every insight shows the notes it came from, so you can check it against what you actually wrote. Your first weekly insight is free. Once a month you get a longer read on where the month went. After your first five notes there's also a first impression of you, and it fills in as you keep writing. CAPTURE Type, or press and hold to speak. Share text, links or images from other apps, or pick screenshots and the text in them is read on your phone. Each note gets a title and tags automatically, so there's nothing to file. ASK YOUR PAST Explore searches by meaning, not only keywords. Ask "What did I decide about the move?" or "What did Anna say last time?" and get an answer built from your own notes. PEOPLE Keep a card for the people in your life: what they said, what you did together, what to bring up next time. Before you meet someone, a reminder shows your open to-dos and what you talked about last time. REMINDERS AND WIDGETS Write "dentist next Friday at 3pm" and it becomes a reminder and a checklist item. There are widgets for the Home Screen and Lock Screen, and the checklist can run as a Live Activity. PRIVACY Your notes are stored on your device. There's no account to create and no server of mine in between. To title, tag and reflect on your notes, their text is sent to a cloud AI service. If your iPhone supports Apple Intelligence, you can turn on On-Device AI and new notes are handled on the phone instead; Explore and reflections still use the cloud. Every AI result is labeled "On device" or "Cloud AI", so you can see which is which. iCloud sync is optional and uses your own iCloud account. You can export everything as JSON or Markdown at any time, for free. FREE AND PRO Free: 5 notes a day, daily reflections, your first weekly insight, and export. Pro: unlimited notes, weekly insights and monthly reads, 20 Explore questions a day, up to 30 screenshot imports a day, unlimited people, the memory graph and life themes, iCloud sync, and the Rainbow Aurora theme. Pro is a monthly or yearly subscription. The yearly plan comes with a 7-day free trial, the monthly plan with 3 days. Payment is charged to your Apple ID and renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. Second Brain is made by one person, Lemon. Terms of Use: https://smartkiitos.com/secondbrain/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://smartkiitos.com/secondbrain/privacy/

Screenshots

Mem4 screens
Second Brain4 screens

Verdict

The call

Mem and Second Brain both sit at 4.4 stars, but that hides the real split: 100% of Second Brain's written reviews are positive against 41% of Mem's. Mem's advantage is ratings volume (130 vs 2) and update cadence (every 3 days vs every 8 days). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Mem sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $9.00 per month and Second Brain sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for Mem against 4.5 for Second Brain. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Mem has 130 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 41% of Mem's written reviews are positive against 100% of Second Brain's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Mem ships an update every 3 days, Second Brain every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Mem versus Second Brain: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMemSecond Brain
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (130 ratings)4.5 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews41.1% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings130 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 8 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size99 MB12 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMem Labs, Inc.Liwei Xie

Customer experience

Mem

All ratings126 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral5.6%
Negative11.1%
Written reviews129 reviews
Positive41.1%
Neutral9.3%
Negative49.6%

Second Brain

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Mem

Reported bugs

20 issues
  • Notes disappearing without trace or recovery option
  • Bottom navigation bar covering key buttons
  • Settings popup incorrectly prompts to download app already installed
  • Black bar covering AI tool input field on web version
  • Photos not saving or disappearing after one day
Show 15 more
  • List formatting becomes corrupted and uneditable
  • Sync failures between web and mobile versions
  • Tags not linking to existing tags, only creating duplicates
  • Recent search results not clickable
  • Starred mems not displaying
  • AI chat getting stuck and unable to respond
  • Payment charged multiple times without proper plan activation
  • Unable to cancel subscription (confirm button non-functional)
  • Login issues across different platforms and devices
  • App freezing when switching between apps
  • Categories functionality inconsistent and buggy
  • Pull-to-refresh gesture removed with no alternative
  • Search function returning irrelevant results or no results
  • Slow performance and lag on mobile devices
  • AI unable to reference or update notes properly

Requested features

19 requests
  • True hands-free voice activation with Siri shortcuts
  • Widget support for voice notes and Apple Watch
  • Node/mind map graph visualization of note connections
  • PDF and document export functionality
  • Full markdown support
Show 14 more
  • Folder/collection organization system
  • Web scraping and webpage chat integration
  • Multi-language support (Russian, French, etc.)
  • Voice recognition in multiple languages
  • Templates on mobile app
  • Tagging and categorization on mobile
  • API access for third-party integrations
  • Import from Obsidian, Notion, Evernote, Apple Notes
  • Light mode option
  • PDF import and annotation
  • Audio recording and playback
  • Better iPad/Stage Manager support
  • Email-based login option
  • Automatic task carry-over to next day

Second Brain

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Mem

Subscriptions10
  • Mem Plus$9.001 Month
  • Pro$12.001 Month
  • Mem Pro7 Days trial$29.001 Month
Show 7 more
  • Proactive7 Days trial$29.001 Month
  • Mem Pro 2x$49.001 Month
  • Proactive7 Days trial$59.001 Month
  • Mem Pro 5x$99.001 Month
  • Proactive7 Days trial$99.001 Month
  • Mem Pro 10x$149.001 Month
  • Mem Pro 20x$199.001 Month
2 purchases

Second Brain

Subscriptions2
  • Second Brain Pro7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Second Brain Pro7 Days trial$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Mem free?
Mem is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Second Brain free?
Second Brain is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Mem or Second Brain?
Second Brain is rated higher. Mem averages 4.4 out of 5 from 130 ratings, while Second Brain averages 4.5 from 2 ratings.
Do Mem or Second Brain have ads?
Neither Mem nor Second Brain shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Mem or Second Brain?
Mem ships an update every 3 days, and Second Brain every 8 days. Most recently, Mem was updated on November 7, 2026 and Second Brain on November 5, 2026.

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