Comment by rkwz

I'm working on Zen Notes - a minimal, distraction-free notes app that prioritizes ownership and longevity.

The core philosophy is: your notes should be yours forever, that also includes the software stack it's built on. Everything is stored locally in SQLite with standard Markdown, so no vendor lock-in or proprietary formats. The interface is very minimal without flashy colors or icons, so you can focus on your thoughts.

Key features: instant full-text search using BM25, flexible tag organization instead of rigid folders, rich Markdown support with formatting toolbar, and custom "Focus Modes" for different contexts. It's a PWA that works offline (read-only).

The tech stack prioritizes minimal dependencies - no NPM (self-hosted Preact instead of React), Golang for rich standard library, etc. The whole app can be run from a single binary, so no messy installation requirements. Docker is also available.

I tried to design this from scratch, learning about typography, colors, spacing etc. It turned out better than I expected!

I've switched to this as my main notes app and I'm happy with it.

Landing Page: https://www.sheshbabu.com/zen/

Demo: https://zendemo.fly.dev