Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to I'm building an app to replace Overleaf and Notion
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…
This writing platform is designed for creating complex documents like theses and research papers. It features a modern block-based editor that doesn't require LaTeX knowledge, yet supports export to templates such as… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
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Hello HN, I am building Docmost, an open-source collaborative wiki and documentation software. It is an open-source alternative to Confluence and Notion. I have been working on it for the past 12 months. This is the first public release (beta). The rich-text editor has support for real-time collaboration, LaTex, inline comments, tables, and callouts to name a few. Features - Collaborative real-time editor - Spaces (Teamspace) - User permissions - Groups - Comments - Page history - Nested pages - Search - File attachments You can find screenshots of the product on the website. Website:…
2024 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Inspired by the design and UI/UX of apps like Notion, and utility of open-source apps like StackEdit, I decided to create a minimalistic, local-only WYSIWYG Markdown editor. Some features worth highlighting: - Monaco editor and Prettier integration for code snippets - Tables (apparently the holy grail of WYSIWYG editing) - Embeds (for CodePen, CodeSandbox and YouTube, most useful for HTML or JSON exports) - Accepts Markdown paste-in, and "exports"/generates HTML, Markdown and JSON outputs - Collaboration (with real-time awareness and initial commenting system, available only when…
2023 · editor.vrite.io · its alternatives →
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A web-based collaborative LaTeX editor. Contribute to overleaf/overleaf development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Kraa 1.0▲359Hi HN! Excited to share the public beta of Kraa – a web-based markdown editor. It's aiming to be distraction-free and has strong separation of the document's styling from the experience of writing it — while still alowing for rich customization. Example of a leaf with custom styles: https://kraa.io/kraa/examples/echolibrary Curious about your feedback in hopes of improving Kraa before the planned launch later this year.
Dec 2025 · kraa.io · its alternatives →
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You simply: 1. Connect your device. 2. Create a top-level `handwritten.blog` folder. 3. Every new notebook in that folder becomes a draft on https://handwritten.blog/ I hope this eventually obviates the need to look at the ugly upload interface you have to use to now upload your writing.
Jul 2026 · handwritten.blog · its alternatives →
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Skilldocs▲192I got fed up with Notion, so I built my dream document editor. It's all markdowned so it's easy to view skills or other agent-related documents. It's got the collaboration features I love from Figma (shared cursory and the ability to follow) and Google Docs (comments, realtime editing). Then you can export the diff and comments to an agent. I've been really liking it for talking over skill documents live on a call. I'm curious if this resonates with other people. More generally, I feel like notion is less and less relevant in an age where documents have a very different purpose and Markdown…
Aug 2026 · skilldocs.dev · its alternatives →
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Pinery▲161Hi HN, I'm Heberti, the solo developer working on Pinery. I've spent the last couple of years building Pinery with a single mission: I wanted a tool that bridged the gap between simple Markdown editors and complex layout software like InDesign. Pinery is my attempt at a solution. It combines a clean, distraction-free Markdown editor with a powerful, real-time visual styling mode. You can control typography, spacing, and layout visually, and see the changes instantly. Key features: - Write in Markdown with AI-assisted text tools (leveraging macOS frameworks) - Customize the design with…
2025 · pinery.app · its alternatives →
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BetterWrite▲134So this weekend I and a friend of mine (@ronitrajfr) created a minimalist writing editor. It's ui is clean, beautiful and distraction free, it also has a vim mode and everything stays on your computer no authentication is required to write your thoughts and all we wanted an application where we just start typing with no BS and that's what we made. and did I tell ya that it's open source as well lmk your thoughts and feedback!!
Dec 2025 · betterwrite.ronitt.xyz · its alternatives →
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MonsterWriter is the academic writing tool for students and researchers. Distraction-free document editing, powerful citation management, and full LaTeX workspace support. Better than Overleaf.
2020 · monsterwriter.app · its alternatives →
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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 · its alternatives →
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Writing is a lightweight distraction-free text editor, in the browser (Markdown and LaTeX supported). - josephernest/writing
2017 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Lightweight, cross-platform documentation writing tool.
2020 · documentnode.io · its alternatives →
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2022 · lambdaway.free.fr · its alternatives →
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CodeX Docs▲163Self-hosted alternative to Notion, Paper and Google Docs
2022 · docs.codex.so · its alternatives →
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MonsterWriter is the academic writing tool for students and researchers. Distraction-free document editing, powerful citation management, and full LaTeX workspace support. Better than Overleaf.
2022 · monsterwriter.app · its alternatives →
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Bibby AI ▲165Hi, Fellow researcher from Yale, I was frustrated with Overleaf and google docs not able to write and collaborate on documents the way I wanted to. I write my research in Latex but since Cursor came out, I thought this has to change, I'm wasting too much time and having mental fog all the time, kinda going through writer's block and hence I decided to create this latex writing assistant for myself but now used by a ton of researchers, I wanted your feedback, what you like, what you don't like, alternatives you've seen, what you would like to have, nice to have, you'd definitely pay to have,…
Apr 2026 · trybibby.com · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →