a simplenote alternative

shizumu is a private writing app, and a simplenote alternative for people who liked how little was in the way and want a way back to what they wrote. it is free, the notes live on your device, and every page opens empty.

the pins view in shizumu: each pin kept on a trail, with its title and the line of the page it points back to the pins view in shizumu: each pin kept on a trail, with its title and the line of the page it points back to

how the two behave

simplenote is plain text with tags and an account, synced everywhere and free. its virtue is that nothing is in the way, and its limit is the same thing: a long list of notes, a search box, and nothing to lean on when you come back a month later.

shizumu keeps the empty start and changes the coming back. the writing is a database on your device, there is nothing to sign up for before you write, and pins point into the page where a thought happened.

if your simplenote sync stopped

a lot of people land here because their notes stopped syncing between devices. before you sign out, reinstall or switch anything, get a copy of what you have: the simplenote desktop and web apps can export your notes as text files, and the device that still shows your latest notes is the one to export from. with that copy safe, simplenote's own help pages are the place to fix the sync itself.

if you decide to move instead, the text files paste straight onto a shizumu page, and the notes are on your device from the first second. sync here is optional, so a sync problem never stands between you and your writing.

who it fits, and who it doesn't

if you want the same notes on an iphone, a mac and a windows pc today, simplenote or standard notes still cover more devices. shizumu runs on linux and windows, android is a closed test on google play (ask to join), mac is a beta download, and iphone is a testflight beta. if you need a settled app on those today, simplenote is the safer pick. it fits people who write to think and want the notes that mattered to come back, rather than scrolling a list to find them.

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. where you used a tag to gather notes on one thread, a trail does that job. everything else lives in memory: search it, or open one trail, one date, pages, or pins.

the page is not plain text either: / gives a table, a chart, an outline or a block of code, and @ reaches a page, a pin or a trail. plain to open, not plain to write in.

moving your notes over

paste the exported text onto a page. pasted markdown keeps its headings, lists and code as blocks. you do not need to move every note: bring the ones that still belong to a project, put them on its trail, and pin what matters. 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.

sync, when you want it

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). the detail is in how to sync between devices and what the relay can and cannot see.

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: a google keep alternative 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