an obsidian alternative for writing to think
shizumu is a private writing app, and an obsidian alternative that keeps what people choose obsidian for: the writing on your own machine, open source code, and markdown on the way out. sync is end-to-end encrypted and free on two devices, or on every device with a relay you run, and nothing asks where a note goes before you write it.
how the two behave
obsidian gives you a vault: folders of markdown files, links between them, a graph, and plugins for the rest. it is a system, and a good one, for people who want to build one. the work of the vault is deciding where each note lives and what it links to, and that work happens before the writing.
shizumu gives you a page. a new page starts empty. you write to think, you pin what turns out to matter, and when a thread continues past today you put the page on a trail. a trail is for a project, not a day: a book, a job search, anything you'll come back to tomorrow. choose the trail and the pins you already kept there are on the page. everything else lives in memory, searchable. a page does not have to go anywhere, so nothing asks.
who it fits, and who it doesn't
if your thinking happens in the graph, in the links between notes and the plugins that work them, obsidian does that well and you should stay. shizumu is for the other case: the vault got big, the first thing every note asked was which folder, and the writing you did to think got buried under the writing you did to file.
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 writing is a database on your device, and the app is free.
obsidian sync is a paid add-on. here, sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted. the relay holds what it cannot read, and neither can we. hosted sync is free on two devices, and your own relay is free on every device: the deploy guide and pricing. what the relay does see, sealed blob sizes and timing, is written down in the threat model, and the primitives are in how sync is encrypted.
the client is apache-2.0 and the relay agpl-3.0-or-later, both on github.
moving over
there is no vault importer. what carries across is the text: paste a markdown note onto a page and its headings, lists, tasks and code come in as blocks. most people bring the one or two threads they still return to and leave the archive where it is. on the way out, export writes every page as a markdown file into a folder you choose, plus a full backup of the database, so the writing never depends on the app.
what the page can do
the page is not plain text. / for a table, a chart, an outline, a block of code. @ to reach a page, a pin, or a trail. mod+k for the trail index, mod+p to pin from the cursor, alt+↑ and alt+↓ to move a block. structure lives inside the writing, so you get it without learning a system first.
a continuous trail is one living document you keep adding to, for a book or a year-long project: the one place the default is deliberately turned off. its pins keep it from becoming a wall to re-read.
the way back
backlinks are how a vault brings a note back. here it is the pins on a trail. your thinking happens on the page. the pins are where you left it, and opening the trail puts them in front of you. re-reading and reordering them is the six-month view of one topic. you can try the whole app in your browser, with a few weeks of writing already in it. also worth a look: a logseq 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.
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