Hi HN.
I tested literally dozens of note-taking apps over the years — free, paid, everything. They all sucked except UpNote. Great UX, clean, fast, just works. But your data lives in Google Firebase. Dealbreaker.
So I tried Obsidian. Local files, markdown, own your data — great philosophy. But the app itself? Even with everything disabled, as a plain markdown editor it was painful. I actually stopped taking notes entirely.
So I built what I wanted: inspired by UpNote's clean design but taken further; less clutter, more polished, with Obsidian's local-first ideology. Your notes are standard .md files on your filesystem. No cloud, no sync service, no lock-in.
What's in it:
- Rich markdown editor (TipTap v3) with formatting toolbar, slash commands, and source mode
- Full-text search powered by Tantivy (Rust search engine) — fast and instant
- Graph view to visualize connections between notes via [[wiki-links]]
- Per-note version history
- AI writing tools with bring-your-own-key (Anthropic/OpenAI).
- Theme accent colors, light/dark mode, multiple fonts
- Built with Rust, Tauri + Svelte. No Electron
Linux and Windows now, macOS coming. AGPL-3.0, source on Codeberg:
https://codeberg.org/ArkHost/HelixNotes
Happy to answer questions.
I tested literally dozens of note-taking apps over the years — free, paid, everything. They all sucked except UpNote. Great UX, clean, fast, just works. But your data lives in Google Firebase. Dealbreaker.
So I tried Obsidian. Local files, markdown, own your data — great philosophy. But the app itself? Even with everything disabled, as a plain markdown editor it was painful. I actually stopped taking notes entirely.
So I built what I wanted: inspired by UpNote's clean design but taken further; less clutter, more polished, with Obsidian's local-first ideology. Your notes are standard .md files on your filesystem. No cloud, no sync service, no lock-in.
What's in it:
- Rich markdown editor (TipTap v3) with formatting toolbar, slash commands, and source mode - Full-text search powered by Tantivy (Rust search engine) — fast and instant - Graph view to visualize connections between notes via [[wiki-links]] - Per-note version history - AI writing tools with bring-your-own-key (Anthropic/OpenAI). - Theme accent colors, light/dark mode, multiple fonts - Built with Rust, Tauri + Svelte. No Electron
Linux and Windows now, macOS coming. AGPL-3.0, source on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/ArkHost/HelixNotes
Happy to answer questions.