Grug Notes, a simple take on text notes
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…
In plain words
Grug Notes is a text-based note-taking and wiki app designed for personal use cases like CRM management, work notes, and personal recording. Built by its creator after two years of development, it prioritizes simplicity over complex features, using a straightforward text box interface rather than the elaborate linking systems found in competing apps. The app incorporates AI capabilities to enhance functionality while maintaining its core philosophy of ease of use.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
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 to get a few more people testing. HN may not be the target user, but it's the best crowd for feedback. Grug Notes is an effort I've been able to fit in after my kid goes to sleep. As someone who is not always on a computer for my work, I became disillusioned with Roam Research, Coda, and Notion. I have no ambition to build a big company, but a cash-flowing saas sounds nice. Building this has been a source of flow and optimism when the rest of my life has been chaos. My entire career and current business is building carbon fiber outrigger canoes, but competing against good products made in China is nearly impossible. I've tried for 17 years. I may try for 17 more. But it's also very realistic that without some diversification into aerospace or tech, my days as a small business owner in manufacturing may be numbered. My last three years have not gone as planned personally and professionally, and the reality is that I've used programming as some form of escapism. I've enjoyed it and will keep working on Grug Notes indefinitely, but with my daughter starting pre-school next week and my regular business needing my attention, I'm at an inflection point. It's probably time I push to move beyond seven paying customers so I'm not paying server bills out of pocket. :) Anyway, I'd love for anyone to take a look, and I am happy to answer any questions about Grug Notes or canoes!
More work this month
the category →
The app store for voice native apps that lives in your notch
Work · 28d ago · voiceos.com
The New Calendly▲211Handle all of the work before, during, and after meetings
Work · 17d ago · calendly.com
Launched alongside, August 2024
the whole month →
- IY
Life & fun · 2024 · ytch.xyz
- IA
Hey there HN! We’re Joe and Stopa, and today we’re open sourcing InstantDB, a client-side database that makes it easy to build real-time and collaborative apps like Notion and Figma. Building modern apps these days involves a lot of schleps. For a basic CRUD app you need to spin up servers, wire up endpoints, integrate auth, add permissions, and then marshal data from the backend to the frontend and back again. If you want to deliver a buttery smooth user experience, you’ll need to add optimistic updates and rollbacks. We do these steps over and over for every feature we build, which can…
Dev tools · 2024 · github.com