an open source journaling app

what open source buys you in a journal

people looking for an open source diary usually want three things they can check rather than take on trust.

first, what the app does with the writing. it is a database on your device, and the source is there to read. second, what happens when it syncs. sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted: the relay holds what it cannot read, and neither can we. every page is sealed on your device before it leaves, and the primitives are written down: how sync is encrypted, what the relay can and cannot see. third, whether you depend on anyone's server. you do not: the relay is open source too, and you can run it yourself (the deploy guide).

who it fits, and who it doesn't

if you want your journal as a folder of markdown files you edit with any tool, a plain text editor does that well, and some open source journaling software is built on exactly that. shizumu keeps the writing in a database and gives you markdown when you export. it fits people who want to open the app and write, and have the parts that mattered come back later, without deciding where each entry goes.

what a page does

a new page starts empty. you write to think. when something turns out to matter, you pin it, and the pin points back to the page it came from. 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. everything else lives in memory: search it, or open one trail, one date, pages, or pins.

the page has real tools: / for a table, a chart, an outline or a block of code, and @ to reach a page, a pin or a trail. a continuous trail is one long document you keep adding to, the one place the empty page is deliberately turned off, which is how people keep a book in it for years.

platforms and sync

it runs on linux (flathub, x86_64 and arm64) and windows. android is a closed test on google play, and the android page is where you ask to join. hosted sync is free on two devices, and your own relay is free on every device: pricing. mac is a beta download and iphone is a testflight beta.

moving in, and leaving

entries from another journal paste onto a page, and pasted markdown keeps its headings and lists as blocks. on the way out, every page exports as a markdown file into a folder you choose, and settings can make a full backup of the database. the best open source journal is the one whose data you can leave with, and that is a thing you can check here too.

where to read more

the source: github.com/shizumu-app/shizumu. or try it in your browser, with a few weeks of writing already in it.