a standard notes alternative with the whole editor free

shizumu is a private writing app, and a standard notes alternative for people who wanted encrypted writing without deciding which features their plan includes. the app is free, every block on the page is free, the code is open source, and sync is end-to-end encrypted and free on two devices.

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

standard notes is an encrypted note app with an account, built around long-term durability, owned by proton since 2024, with paid plans for the richer editors and extras. the free tier is plain on purpose, and tags are how you find a note again.

shizumu is one app, and it is free: the page with all its blocks, and the source on github, apache-2.0 on the client and agpl-3.0-or-later on the relay. there is nothing to sign up for before you write. the writing sits on your device, and sync starts from a recovery phrase on that device when you want it.

who it fits, and who it doesn't

if you need a mac or iphone app today, standard notes has one. shizumu has a mac beta and an iphone testflight beta, so if you need a settled app on those today, standard notes is the safer pick. if you want a plain encrypted text file per thought, kept for decades, standard notes is built for exactly that. shizumu fits the person who writes to think, wants tables, outlines and code on the same page as the sentences, and would rather pin what matters than tag everything.

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.

sync is optional and end-to-end encrypted. the relay holds what it cannot read, and neither can we. keys come from a recovery phrase on your device and never leave your devices. hosted sync is free on two devices, and a relay you run yourself is free on every device: pricing and how to run the relay yourself. the relay does see sealed blob sizes, hashes and timing, and that is written down rather than waved away: how sync is encrypted and what the relay can and cannot see.

moving over

standard notes exports a backup of your notes, and there is no standard notes importer here. what carries across is the text: paste a note onto a page, and if it is markdown its headings, lists, tasks and code come in as blocks. the tags and the editor setup stay behind. on the way out, shizumu writes every page as a markdown file into a folder you choose, plus a full backup of the database, so durability does not depend on one app either.

what a page does instead

a new page starts empty. you write to think. a pin is a pointer back into the page where the thinking happened: your thinking happens on the page, and the pins are where you left it. 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 pins you already kept there are on the page. everything else lives in memory, searchable. that is the way back, and it does not depend on remembering a tag.

the editor is not the plain-tier kind: / gives a table, a chart, an outline, a decision, a block of code, and @ reaches a page, a pin or a trail. mod+f finds, and 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: a notesnook alternative and a free, private journaling app.

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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