Alternatives
Products that do what Lightwave – Real-time notes app, 3.5 years of hand-rolled JavaScript does
Hi HN! I've been building this solo for about three and a half years. I kept trying every new project/notes tool (Notion, Asana, Trello, etc.) and always ended up back in a plain text file. I wanted something that felt like a text editor on first touch but could grow into real structure when you needed it. https://lightwave.so (desktop only) The tech stack is Laravel, MySQL, Redis, and hand-rolled JavaScript on the client. No frameworks like React/Vue/etc. ~270 lines of jQuery (out of 80k+ total LOC) for a few legacy DOM utilities, plus IndexedDB for local…
- 1ME
I wanted to see how far I could go building a notes app using only what modern browsers already provide – no frameworks, no storage APIs, no build step. What it does: Single HTML file, no deps, 111 loc Notes live in the URL hash (shareable links!) Auto-compressed with CompressionStream Plain-text editor (contenteditable) History support Page title from first # heading Respects light/dark mode No storage, cookies, or tracking The entire app is the page source. https://textarea.my/
Dec 2025 · github.com
- 2NI
Hello HN, I hope it will posted as well. I made a note in single html file. This does not require a separate membership or installation of the software, and if you download and modify an empty file, you can modify and read it at any time, regardless of online or offline. It can be shared through messengers such as Telegram, so it is also suitable to share contents with long articles and images. It is also possible to host and blog because it is static html file content.
2025 · keepworking.github.io
- 3NC
Thank you for your comments, just some context: - The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, and the Web. - The Web version is implemented as a Progressive Web Application that is very responsive, local first, offline first, can be installed, and is entirely free to use. - Native (hybrid) versions do not require subscription fees and have small one-time payment. - You can store your notes in Git using any Git provider such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. However, it has the best built-in integration with GitHub. Self-hosted scenarios like Gitea are also…
2024 · about.noteshub.app
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Hi HN – we first launched Supernotes[1] to HN in April 2020, and since then Tobias and I (it's just the two of us) have put in the work to make what we hope is an amazing note-taking app. Although the note-taking / personal knowledge management landscape is incredibly competitive at the moment (with lots of great apps adding great new features every day), we think that with the newly released Supernotes 2 we're keeping pace and delivering a unique and satisfying knowledge management experience. Here's the combination of features that make us stand out: - a powerful markdown-based…
2022 · supernotes.app
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As a native Windows user who switched to macOS a few years back, one thing I never got over was the simplicity and usefulness of the old school Notepad app. This app aims to recreate that very same experience, cross-platform and easily installable as a PWA. I've been using this for personal use for around 2 years and I figured it was time to share it with the world. Criticism, issues and PRs are welcome. Thanks!
2025 · github.com
- 8DA
Hey HN! I’ve written a bunch of WebSocket servers over the years to do simple things like state synchronization, WebRTC signaling, and notifying a client when a backend job was run. I realized that if I had a simple way to create a private, temporary, mini-redis that the client could talk to directly, it would save a lot of time. So we created DriftDB. In addition to the open source server that you can run yourself, we also provide https://jamsocket.live where you can use an instance we host on Cloudflare’s edge (~13ms round trip latency from my home in NY). You may have seen my…
2023 · driftdb.com
- 9M2
Hey HN, I want to share with you something I and my four colleagues have been working on for the last several years. It’s a whiteboarding and notes tool called Muse[1]. We just released a 2.0 version which includes local-first sync. A little backstory: I’m one of the authors of the 2019 essay Local-first software[2]. (Past HN discussions[3][4].) The thesis is to reclaim some of the ownership over our data that we’ve lost in the transition from filesystems to cloud/SaaS. So I’m excited to bring CRDT technology “out of the lab” and into a commercial product as a chance to prove the value…
2022 · museapp.com
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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
- 11LP
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
- 12IM
This project began when I realized that despite trying many fantastic note-taking apps, I often defaulted to dumping notes into chat apps like Slack or iMessage. I wanted to bring that effortless “text yourself” note-taking experience to a dedicated note-taking app. Originally developed as a macOS app, Strflow is now also available for iOS. Strflow is designed to make note-taking as quick and intuitive as possible, centered around a chronological timeline UI. Here are some of its features: * Tag system * Rich editor with text formatting, images, and note linking * Global shortcuts for quick…
2024 · strflow.app
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Hey hacker news, I've worked on a note/wiki app nights and weekends for almost two years. While still missing some essentials and polish, I'm happy with the progress and some of my use cases: personal CRM, work notes, and a place to write/record funny things my kid says. I bought into the hype a few years ago with linking apps but quickly grew tired of spinners and steep learning curves, so I started over with a text box and my HTML skills from twenty years ago. Then Chatgpt came out, giving me the tools to add a bit of magic and dig into my stance on simplicity even more. I'd love…
2024 · grugnotes.com
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- 15IM
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…
2025
- 16IO
Look, every journaling app out there wants you to organize things into folders and tags and templates. I just wanted to write something down every day. So I built this. One note per day. That's the whole deal. - Can't edit yesterday. What's done is done. Keeps you from fussing over old entries instead of writing today's. - Year view with dots showing which days you actually wrote. It's a streak chart. Works better than it should. - No signup required. Opens right up, stores everything locally in your browser. Optional cloud sync if you want it - E2E encrypted with AES-GCM, zero-knowledge,…
Mar 2026
- 17OA
Hey HN! I’ve been building [Octarine](https://octarine.app/) for a little over 2 years. It started because I wanted a note-taking app that was: - Lightweight (< 30MB, fast to launch, no Electron bloat). - Opinionated (good defaults, clean UI, not a plugin bazaar). - Yours (all plain Markdown, nothing proprietary). --- - Command bar (Cmd/Ctrl+K) to navigate and run commands quickly. - WYSIWYG editor (rich text without live preview jumping). - Git sync built-in — backups to GitHub/GitLab, no plugins. - Natural language dates (“yesterday”, “last week”). - Multiple…
2025 · octarine.app
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The app started as my wishful thinking that flashcards should really be derived from notes. I've been constantly writing things down and wishing to remember them. However, I never could convince myself to populate a flashcard app with them. I really tried (Anki, Supermemo), but I guess regular form filling is not for me. So I've started experimenting with flashcards derived from structured notes. Writing the 1st MVP was fast, but productionising it was way harder. Content synchronisation when the user can work from tube/plane and use multiple devices and content is text is… not trivial.…
2024 · flashnotesapp.com
- 20JF
On iOS, I've flip-flopped back and forth between a bunch of note-taking and journaling apps. None would stick. My initial attempts at building such an app faded just the same, until I realized I wanted the same level of low-friction posting and browsing offered by social media apps, but for my quick notes. Not social, just easy posting, search, and a familiar feed. This is how Journelly came to be. I like to describe it as: tweeting, but for your eyes only (fully offline and in plain text). If you’re an Org markup user, you’ll be delighted to know it’s powered by unicorns under the hood. If…
2025 · xenodium.com
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