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Alternatives

Products that do what I'm building an app to replace Overleaf and Notion does

Hi HN, Since 2019, I’ve been working on a writing platform designed for creating complex documents (e.g., theses). I personally use it for everything as it also allows to classify documents in categories so you can organize them efficiently. As of a few months ago, the app is also available in the browser, and you can now invite coworkers to collaborate on a document in real time. The app is somewhat inspired by LyX. It offers an intuitive, modern editor, but users don’t need to know any LaTeX. When it’s time to export, they can choose from a range of templates (IEEE paper, thesis, etc.). A…

  1. 1
    Trix184

    A rich text editor for everyday writing

    2015

  2. 2
    Kraa 1.0359

    The writing app for everything

    Dec 2025

  3. 3LP

    Hi HN! For the last 8 months we've been working on leaflet.pub, a web app for making delightful documents. We're trying to strike a balance between Notion and Google Docs — very fast, ultralight and easy to share, but also supporting rich blocks and multiple pages. Weirdly, none of the many notetaking/document apps that we could find hit this combination, so we made Leaflet. With it you can: - Instantly create a doc, without an account - Share read and edit links - Sign-in with email to sync your docs to different devices - Add rich blocks, like canvases, subpages, rsvps, and polls It's…

    2025

  4. 4
    Chunks138

    A new way to write a whole bunch of stuff

    2018

  5. 5

    A minimalist writing app for Mac

    2015

  6. 6

    An expressive and collaborative document editor

    2015

  7. 7LF

    I'm not the author of the app (nor i have any connection with them, just a random user). iA Writer and Writer Pro aren't well suited for me as a developer. They feel quite "strange" to me. Mou is a good option (free too) but still missing some features. So far this, this editor is the most complete user-friendly. Hope it helps!

    2013 · clockworkengine.com

  8. 8

    Best Collaborative LaTeX Editor

    Sep 2025

  9. 9
    s'More265

    A desktop app for writing Medium stories

    2016

  10. 10

    Self-hosted alternative to Notion, Paper and Google Docs

    2022

  11. 11
    Typewrite103

    Real-time collaborative writing

    2014

  12. 12
    Edition149

    No-code publishing platform with the ease of Notion

    2021

  13. 13KW

    Hello HN! We're a team of three building a new kind of web-based markdown editor. There are many editors out there, so one is spoiled for choice, but Kraa's approach is a little different. It's trying to be both a minimal and distraction-free experience while being feature-rich and allowing for tons of use cases. What Kraa's good for: - Distraction-free writing & reading (minimal UI, performant, styling logic completely separated from the editing experience) - Quick sharing of any written text – compared to many other writing tools, your content can be easily shared just by posting a link…

    Dec 2025 · kraa.io

  14. 14

    A text editor engineered for creative writing.

    2019

  15. 15

    Draft brand new documents to use over API

    2025

  16. 16IV
  17. 17
    Writex.io148

    An online editor with super powers

    2021

  18. 18

    Like Overleaf and Notion had a baby

    Oct 2025

  19. 19LB
  20. 20AC

    So I've been working on this app for a very long time now. Started off by wanting an app that separates long form notes from short form notes visually and keeps everything organized on a canvas. The app features: -Sticky notes for quick, small notes and A4 notes for long form documents -A quick mode that uses local storage to quickly open the app and jot down a thought on the canvas -A PDF export option that exports your notes into 3 custom designed PDF styles -Visual hierarchy to replicate file structure instead of a linear fashion, where your files are notes, stacks are folders and labels…

    Jul 2026 · passinote.app

  21. 21

    The easy to use, online, collaborative LaTeX editor

    2016

  22. 22WW

    Hi HN! We at Moment[1] are working on Notion alternative which is (1) rich and collaborative, but (2) also just plain-old Markdown files, stored in git (ok, technically in jj), on local disk. We think the era of rigid SaaS UI is, basically, over: coding agents (`claude`, `amp`, `copilot`, `opencode`, etc.) are good enough now that they instantly build custom UI that fits your needs exactly. The very best agents in the world are coding agents, and we want to allow people to simply use them, e.g., to build little internal tools—but without compromising on collaboration. Moment aims to cover…

    Mar 2026 · moment.dev

  23. 23
    Hi62

    A real-time writing community.

    2014

  24. 24IB

    I was experimenting with building a local dataset generator with deep research workflow a while back and that got me thinking. what if the same workflow could run on my own files instead of the internet. being able to query pdfs, docs or notes and get back a structured report sounded useful. so I made a small terminal tool that does exactly that. I point it to local files like pdf, docx, txt or jpg. it extracts the text, splits it into chunks, runs semantic search, builds a structure from my query, and then writes out a markdown report section by section. it feels like having a lightweight…

    2025 · github.com

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