an open source note taking app

what open source gets you here

you can read what the app does with your notes. they live in a database on your device, and the source shows there is no upload and nothing that profiles you. when you turn sync on, every change is sealed on your device before it leaves, and the primitives are written down: how sync is encrypted and what the relay can and cannot see.

the relay is open source too, so you can run it yourself, on a small box at home or a cheap server: the deploy guide. the source for both: github.com/shizumu-app/shizumu.

who it fits, and who it doesn't

most open source note apps are built around filing: notebooks, folders, a vault of markdown files. joplin is a good notebook app, and a vault of linked markdown files builds a graph well. if that is how you work, they suit you.

shizumu is for people who take notes to think. the questions that stall a first sentence, how should this be structured and where does it go, are not asked. you open it on an empty page and write. the structure comes from what you choose to keep, not from where you put things.

what a page, a pin and a trail do

a new page starts empty. when a line turns out to matter, you pin it. a pin is a pointer back into the page, and the pins on one topic read as a short summary of months of notes. 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.

for one topic that should keep growing, a continuous trail is one living document you keep adding to, and its pins keep it from turning into a wall to re-read.

a note taking app with real tools on the page

it is keyboard driven. / brings a table, a chart, an outline or a block of code to the cursor. @ reaches a page, a pin or a trail. mod+k opens the trail index and the command palette, mod+p pins from the cursor, mod+f finds, and alt with the arrows moves a block. search runs over block titles as well as text. the docs show how a developer uses it, one trail per project.

platforms and sync

linux from flathub (x86_64 and arm64), and a setup installer for windows. android is in a closed test on google play: join the android test. mac is a beta download and iphone is a testflight beta. you can also try it in your browser before installing anything.

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: pricing.

moving your notes over

paste text in and it lands on the page. going the other way, every page exports as a markdown file into a folder you choose, and settings makes a full backup of the database. an open source app is only as open as the way out of it, and the way out is plain markdown.

if you came for a journal rather than notes, the same app is on an open source journaling app.