Alternatives
Products that do what After 7685 commits, I built an offline-first, end-to-end encrypted PKM does
Hey HN, A long time ago, due to the lack of viable solutions with E2EE and offline-first syncing, I decided to dedicate my time to making one (which has its own story: https://yaad.one/blog/yaad-story). In the course of ~3 years, I developed a knowledge management app with these primary features: - Primitives: Notes, Tasks, Contacts - Grouping with "Boxes" - Offline-first - Multiplatform; currently available for Android, Windows (x64), macOS, and Linux (ARM). - Fully end-to-end encrypted (AES-256-GCM) - 13 Languages, 8 calendar systems - Light & dark mode Last night, I…
- 1MI
Hi one and all. I've created an encrypted personal organizer I wish to share with you all. I know.... you are sighing and thinking "Oh! No! not another one". doogiePIM is different in that it's built by the same coder that created one of the very first PIMs that came out around 18+ years ago and creator of TexNotes way back then (it was actually called Scribillo. Wow, I feel old). The original PIM was sold then abandoned by GemX Software and that made me feel really bad. So, I obtained the full code and started to build a far better version of the information manager. One that will…
2018
- 2MF
I know everyone is a bit burned out on blockchain and cryptocurrency related stuff around these parts, but I've been working on as a side project for the last few months and thought you guys might be interested: https://cryptoempire.io/ It's still a bit buggy and incomplete (the mobile ux needs a lot of work, the leaderboard isn't functional yet, etc.), but I've reached a point where I'm not totally ashamed of sharing it :) Any feedback would be most welcome!
2018
- 3M1
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daveganly.yarrly Hi, this is Yarrly - my first android app, backed up server side by a mongo & node.js backend. It’s a two-panel image generator, and quite a fun experiment in a no-login (‘anonymous’) app. You generate two panel images using photos or gallery pics, and add text, then it’s uploaded to Yarrly.com - creating an instagram-like link. For example you create http://yarrly.com/y/4hhs6ryyq73da533d, then android intents mean that if you open that link on a device that has Yarrly, you can…
2013
- 4

Definitely one of those "20 minute adventure gone wrong" projects where all I wanted initially was a quick wireless rubber ducky for bitlocker keys and the like and then I kept adding stuff like AES-256..... Currently working on adding WebAuthn/FIDO support because the hardware is already there and scope creep is a lifestyle at this point. Would love feedback, especially on the security side. Repo and PCB files are fully open source.
Jul 2026 · github.com
- 5WB
Hello HN, Over the last year we've been building snote.app, a Privacy focused, End-to-End Encrypted alternative to Notion. You can write, plan, collaborate and get organized - it allows you to take notes, store files, add tasks, manage projects & more. Whether you're working solo or in a team. We are hoping to use this post as an opportunity to collect feedback from fellow hackers. If there's anything we can do better, please let us know
2023 · snote.app
- 6KA
2017 · github.com
- 7MM
Inspired by the following post by photon_off... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1683309 I made karmurl last night. It's a simple app where you submit a URL for feedback, then for every piece of feedback you give to someone else's, you get to read one piece of feedback for yours. http://karmurl.com
2011
- 8SE
Hello. I made this project as an experiment in using key cryptography for user identity in a client server model, and for some future peer to peer projects that I am working on. I am looking for feedback, please let me know what you think. Also, Merry Christmas to HN! :-)
2022 · github.com
- 9MP
My first "real" web app! I appreciate any comments/suggestions.<p>Also I am available for hire. Contact me at www.sambolgert.com
2012 · se.cret.ly
- 10IM
Hi, Sometimes I want to wrap an existing website into an Android app quickly so I made a service that does just that https://html2apk.com/ If you find it useful I'll be happy to hear about that, if you have any other comments/suggestions I'll be happy to hear about that too. 10x, Gilad
2019
- 11AF
https://github.com/inoda/private_journal Built this to use myself, and I'm curious if anybody would be interested in using it. I'm also wondering if anybody has tips to make it more secure (I'm super super new to encryption and whatnot). The security is probably a bit overkill since chances are that nobody cares about what I'm journaling, but it is fun to implement from a code standpoint.
2019
- 12IB
Hey HN, I'm a solo developer from Nigeria. I built Quran Unlock - an app that blocks distracting apps (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) until you complete your daily Quran reading. The idea came from my own struggle with phone addiction. I wanted to read Quran daily but kept getting distracted. So I built this for myself, then shared it. Some stats after 2 months: - 123K+ users - 64.9% returning user rate - 31M events tracked Tech stack: - React Native - Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Analytics, Cloud Messaging) - RevenueCat for subscriptions - iOS Screen Time API + Android UsageStats App Store:…
Jan 2026
- 13MT
Long story short: After heartbleed thingy decided to use a password manager. Didn't want to buy one. Didn't like KeepassX interface. Started using MacPass. Tired of bugs and form fillings. Decided to make my own text editor that can encrypt saved files with password. Try it out here: http://textcrypt.4apps.lv/app/updates/TextCrypt_1.0.424.zip and let me know what you think. Would you use it? Any feedback, suggestions which direction to go? p.s. Its an early Alpha version.
2014
- 14LA
Hey HN, Along with a handful of friends, I've been working on a note taking platform for the last couple years. We created a 2 minute pitch of our platform, if you'd prefer to read, maybe you'd want to checkout our README: https://github.com/lockbook/lockbook. If you don't want to do either of those things I'll try to summarize some of our core values: - everything end to end encrypted - open formats: markdown and svg - strong offline support - everything open source - native apps where possible - rust where possible Some other stuff we're proud of: - we have a CLI which…
2024 · youtube.com
- 15IB
Recent news about Trump admin officials accidentally leaking war plans via Signal (The Atlantic, March 24, 2025) has renewed concerns over secure messaging. But for me, those concerns aren’t new. While visiting family and friends in Ukraine, I sat down with a friend for coffee at a café in Kyiv and that’s where it all started - the first sketch of a messenger built for privacy, not profit. We knew most messaging platforms were vulnerable to leaking data, tracking users, and exposing private conversations. We believed we could build something better. Then the war in Ukraine began, and…
2025 · gospl.chat
- 16WI
Show HN: What I learned building a local-only password manager (PassForgePro) Hi HN, I built PassForgePro as a learning project to better understand password manager design, local-first security, and common cryptographic pitfalls. The goal was not to replace mature tools like Bitwarden or KeePass, but to explore: * how a local-only, zero-knowledge style design can work * key derivation with PBKDF2 and encrypted SQLite vaults (AES-256-GCM) * handling sensitive data in memory and clipboard cleanup * defining a realistic threat model and its limitations This project is experimental and…
Jan 2026 · github.com
- 17IM
- 18AH
I've been playing around with Android development recently, and made this Hacker News app this weekend: Market link: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mellort.hackernews ($1) Dropbox link: http://db.tt/jlqIcBg1 (free: if you like it, DL from the market, too!) I used api.ihackernews.com for the data. Unfortunately, some of the pagination from that source is broken, so I can only return one page of results. In the future, I might play around with creating my own API server on App Engine. I'm not sure what my plans are for the source yet, but I'd like to make it open source. If you're…
2012
- 19DO
Hi HN and Happy New Year! I built DailyNote, a minimalist daily notes app: one note per day, a year-at-a-glance calendar, and local-first storage. The interesting bit is the encryption + sync model: - Notes are always encrypted locally before syncing to Supabase. - A dedicated data key (DEK) encrypts notes; your password only wraps that DEK (KEK). - So when you change your password, it just re-wraps the DEK — no re-encryption of note data. I built the whole project in one day using Claude + Codex with a spec‑driven approach (tight PRD → implementation). It’s React/TypeScript, IndexedDB…
Jan 2026
- 20IM
Hey HN! Thank you for all the support and feedback on my original submission 2 months ago. I've been improving the backend using a MCTS/AlphaZero approach and it's currently producing much better results. My long term goal is to allow users to manage multiple projects, deployed autonomously, both from scratch and by making continual updates all prompted with natural language. The cost of each project has been lowered to $9 as performance with smaller models has improved (I migrated from Claude-3-Opus to gemini-1.5-flash). Thanks for checking it out!
2024 · saas-quick.com
- 21ZU
Hi! I made this as a hackathon project, the result is really cool and works very well. All you need to do is connect with your Metamask wallet and start creating documents. It also has proof of autorship, so we know if you wrote the document, or you just copy/pasted from chatgpt. This could be useful for schools or something. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
2024 · zkpaper.com
- 22MF
Please have a look at www.socialeaks.com and tell me what you think. This is my first adventure in coding (my background is not CS). I started learning rails about a month ago via railstutorial.org. When I finished that, I felt the best way to continue learning would be to just build an app from scratch. I came up with this concept while observing how crazy the world had gone over WikiLeaks. I thought this was a funny idea. I also thought it would be fun to build! So, here I am. I built this in rails 3 and it is currently living on Heroku. It took me about two weeks to code, doing just about…
2011
- 23IC
Hi Everyone, I created a mobile app called Accumoo, and I would appreciate it if y'all can have a look, download and give me a favorable review. Lots of blood, sweat, tears and love went into this app, and I hope you LOVE it as much as I do - it's the app I always needed and wanted. Anyhow, I've been a Rails developer and Software Engineer for a long time, and this is my first stab at a mobile app. It's a "habit tracker" app on steroids that's just fun to use - syncs across devices, local-first architecture - and an easter egg game for good measure. Help a disabled vet out and give it a go.…
Jan 2026 · apps.apple.com
- 24IM
orignally shared this on startup school... i thought id' share it here. i'm using a `nocode communication tool` (a web-based interface... a single browser tab!) for all of these things: 1. landing page — the landing page is the product and i wanted for folks to feel "transported" right into the app without having to walk through a shitty b2b marketing-style content. this is akin to my experience back in the `BBS` days of the mid-90's where you were immediately into the app, community, and tool. no terms of service, no privacy policy. just pure, immediate value. 2. building community — we…
2021
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