Show HN: Memex is a Claude Code alternative built on Rust+Tauri for vibe coding

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.

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.

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 :)

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?

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.

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.

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!)

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.

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 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.