a joplin alternative that keeps the open source part

shizumu is a private writing app, and a joplin alternative for people who chose joplin because it was open source and kept their data theirs, and who got tired of the filing. sync is end-to-end encrypted and free on two devices, you can run the relay yourself, and a page asks for nothing before you write.

a page in shizumu: one document holding a flowchart, a recipe, a bash command and a decision, with the trail it belongs to and its pins above a page in shizumu: one document holding a flowchart, a recipe, a bash command and a decision, with the trail it belongs to and its pins above

how the two behave

joplin is a notebook app: markdown notes in notebooks, tags, plugins, and sync through joplin cloud or storage you point it at, such as dropbox, onedrive, nextcloud or webdav. it is open source and it keeps your data yours, which is why people choose it. the daily work is still the notebook's work: deciding where a note goes and keeping the tree tidy.

shizumu keeps the parts that made you pick joplin and moves the structure inside the writing. the writing is a database on your device. a page does not go in a notebook, so the first sentence is the first thing that happens.

who it fits, and who it doesn't

if you keep a reference library, with a web clipper feeding notebooks and tags you search by, joplin does that well and you should stay. shizumu fits the person whose joplin is mostly daily writing, filed out of duty into a notebook they never open again.

platforms and sync

shizumu runs on linux (flathub, x86_64 and arm64) and windows. android is a closed test on google play: ask to join. mac is a beta download and iphone is a testflight beta. the app is free.

sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted, and it works without setting up storage first. the relay holds what it cannot read, and neither can we. hosted sync is free on two devices, and a relay you run yourself is free on every device: the deploy guide and pricing. the relay sees sealed blob sizes and timing, not content, titles or filenames: the threat model and how sync is encrypted. the client is apache-2.0 and the relay agpl-3.0-or-later.

moving over

joplin exports markdown and its own jex archive, and there is no joplin importer here. what carries across is the text: paste a markdown note onto a page and its headings, lists, tasks and code come in as blocks. the notebooks and the plugin setup stay in joplin. on the way out, shizumu writes every page as a markdown file into a folder you choose, plus a full backup of the database. the honest trade: fewer places to put things, and one less decision before the first sentence.

what a page does instead

a new page starts empty. you write to think and pin what matters. a trail is for a project, not a day: a book, a job search, anything you'll come back to tomorrow. choose a trail and the page picks up context: the pins you already kept there, already on the page. that is the part a notebook never does on its own. everything else lives in memory: search it, or open one trail, one date, pages, or pins.

the page has the tools a markdown editor has, and a few it doesn't: / for a table, a chart, an outline, a decision, a block of code, and @ to reach a page, a pin or a trail. mod+k opens the trail index.

try before you move

the app runs in your browser with a few weeks of writing already in it: try it. also worth a look: an open source journaling app and a standard notes alternative.

what holds on every platform

shizumu is free, on linux, android, and windows. your writing stays on your device. sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted: the relay holds what it cannot read, and neither can we. the app and the relay are open source: apache-2.0 on the client, agpl-3.0-or-later on the relay.

it will not write for you, because the writing is the thinking.

try it in your browser download