Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App | Hacker News Reader

Beaver Notes: A Privacy-Focused Open-Source Note-Taking App

beavernotes.com

55 points_pk6b64 comments

At this point there are enough note taking app options out there that are really just a fancy interface on top of text/markdown files that I have a really hard time ever considering any ecosystem that locks my notes into their own data system. I do see an export function here, but it is unclear whether or not that export to text files or just to the PDFs.

I use Obsidian, and I would love for it to be Open Source, but I take comfort in the fact that at any moment I can just delete the app and start editing my notes in any application that can interpret text files.

I’ve tried all sorts of notes apps but for some reason always gravitate back to native apple notes 90% of the time to quickly save stuff.

The same Apple notes that makes it hard to export? Why would anyone use this?

Those who don’t care about exporting their notes I guess? I mean I get why people may want to export notes but sometimes (often) you have a native app that just works and notes be accesible on other platforms in the ecosystem. Sure, Logseq and obsidian do this but at least with Logseq I’ve often seen janky behavior where the damn thing hangs because it’s syncing with icloud. I just get tired of these sorts of hiccups and want something that seamlessly just works whether I am on Mac ir iPhone.

And yet, I keep using TextEditor (macOS default text editor) in plain text and, when syncing is needed, Simplenote.

Sometimes people overcomplicate things that are, in essence, pretty simple.

And overcomplicating is inevitably why they stop using the tool, losing its value.

I used Simplenote for a good while and only switched to Apple Notes when my setup went all-Apple (because Simplenote’s sync could be glitchy).

It is becoming less homogeneous now so I may switch back.

A fundamental problem of using simple text editors for note taking is you can't easily click-jump from one note to another. If only TextEditor, Notepad, GEdit etc could make clickable hyperlinks whenever they encounter a string which is a name of a file existing in the same directory - then yes, they would be enough. And people who want a graph could just have it as a separate simple app in that case.

I used to think this was quite important and I still like the idea of interlinking notes, particularly for when I am using my phone.

But it is ultimately just more gardening.

I tried all sorts of systems like that and they all disappointed. What really matters is absolutely instantaneous search.

Edit to add: Apple Notes has finally added note-to-note linking, but at the moment I don't have all my Apple devices sufficiently up to date so I haven't tried it.

Notes also has tagging support which is another one of those things I was sure I'd use a lot more than I actually do.

It seems like such a useful feature but in reality I have a few pinned notes for to-do and shopping lists and ideas, and otherwise just make completely unstructured random notes, never using anything but tagging and setting the colors for pinned notes.

I have Calendar for reminders, and markdown files for things anyone else will see. I just need it to work, open really fast, search, and that's mostly it.

Never used nor needed linked notes, but ymmv.

By the way, an obvious idea just hit me, taking 2 days like obvious ideas usually do: perhaps a slightly less basic text editor like Notepad++ or Sublime can do a great lightweight yet powerful note taking app if you write an extension for it (or if somebody already has done just that).

But these have another problem Notepad hasn't: they apparently don't support Windows' auto completion. I use Windows at work where I am to type in languages I am not perfectly fluent in so I make heavy use of autocompletion to prevent spelling mistakes.

Yeah, I'm just using my own markdown repo

I just use SyncThing and whatever editor I have handy.

I wish everyone who builds their own note taking app would take that time and effort to contribute to Joplin [1].

I use Joplin for personal and Obsidian for work.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joplin_(software)

This person appears to have leaned heavily on LLM generation in everything from their comment here, the readme, to even their github profile page. I haven’t reviewed the code.

The codebase and website consist of a handful of commits made over the prior three weekends.

There is no differentiation from the existing library of note-taking apps.

By any measure this is not a thing worthy of attention, and yet here it is. Why?

edit: At least one answer occurs to me: we have lowered the bar to app creation so far that a person can now create and market an app faster than they can evaluate and understand the existing options.

We are a website away from Let Me Google That For You evolving into LM Develop TFY.

Well that's a bit rude. Calm down

It may be rude (or not?), but it captures the problems quite well, so...

The person in question has a name that hints at the possibility that English is his second language.

The code in question is small but neat and interesting (it’s a Vue 3/Electron app which is a relatively unusual combination); it was not I suspect written with much help from an LLM.

That’s a good point I hadn’t considered. What if you can code but can’t speak English well.

It is the one unambiguous strength of an LLM, I think.

It's kind of core to its being. It's very difficult indeed to get ChatGPT to write ungrammatical english even deliberately. I've tried several times.

> we have lowered the bar to app creation so far that a person can now create and market an app faster than they can evaluate and understand the existing options

I don’t understand the unnecessary gate keeping here. There is no imaginary bar that someone should hit before sharing something they created. Who cares how it was made? If someone made something and it’s gets attention, that’s already enough merit for the post itself.

Sharing things people create should always be encouraged. If something isn’t “worthy” of your made-up standards, then move on. There’s really no reason to bring someone down for it.

> Sharing things people create

That’s the thing though, they didn’t even create the comment they posted here.

If this was a small project communicated honestly then great, I’m all for it.

My edit was about a structural insight, with parallels we have already seen play out in the search space: with no standards for sharing things, or at least for presenting things, an inevitable floating mass of attention-splintering garbage results.

How does this compare to Obsidian [1] (which for example allows me to do the sync using my own private github repository,...)?

[1] https://obsidian.md/

Beaver seems to be open source, although I cannot find any link to the code nor license (although the "Terms" page mentions MIT: https://www.beavernotes.com/Terms.html)

Obsidian isn't open source. But, it stores your files are normal markdown files (cannot see if Beaver does the same) so it's easy to import/export if needed, and also have a huge number of plugins for basically anything out there.

Obsidian is also pretty established (read: "old") at this point so the ecosystem is already big, stability is good and it's mature enough to be used professionally. Probably Beaver doesn't come close to that (yet).

> although I cannot find any link to the code nor license

It's here: https://github.com/Daniele-rolli/Beaver-Notes linked via 'Resources' at the top.

Would be good to know how it compares to Standard Notes[1] which is also open-source[2]

[1] https://standardnotes.com [2] https://github.com/standardnotes/app

Standard Notes has a selfhostable server and clients for mobile. Beaver Notes seems to be confined to one desktop device.

Also Simplenote from the Automattic folks: https://simplenote.com/developers/

This seems concerning: "The Service should not be used to store sensitive information such as bank account numbers, credit card information, or passwords."

Why would a notes app dictate what content can be stored in it?

From: https://simplenote.com/terms/

It’s not dictating.

It’s disclaiming. They are saying they do not believe their cloud-first tool is the appropriate place for that sort of content.

Simplenote is run responsibly by serious people. They are telling you what is absolutely common sense, in my mind: it’s not normal to store sensitive information on cloud notepad services you do not (and cannot!) pay for.

I suspect the reason is that their continuous-sync process (which is like SubEthaEdit etc.) does not work with notes encrypted at source.

Apple Notes makes more of this but it’s provided by a firm with several orders of magnitude more money and resources behind it.

This is from their terms of service. Storing sensitive information in Simplenote is therefore a breach of ToS.

OK, whatever.

They are trying to tell you not to do something risky (for you and for them I guess).

Complain about it on some abstract rights-based level all you like if you feel that it's a strange "concerning" issue. They are good people and they are doing this for the goodwill only (really: read the story about how Matt Mullenweg bought the simplenote.com domain for $29,000 and gifted it to them before he even discussed buying them out).

Me, I just won't use it for sensitive stuff.

Even their fully self-hosted solution seems to come with most features locked behind paid subscriptions[1][2] which, whilst being perfectly fine on its own, is also a restriction that automatically disqualifies the software from being open source[3].

Edit: They're quite possibly violating their own licenses here, but I'm not a lawyer so don't take it as fact.

[1]: https://standardnotes.com/help/48/can-i-use-extensions-with-...

[2]: https://standardnotes.com/help/self-hosting/subscriptions

[3]: https://opensource.org/osd/

or Notesnook[1], which is also open-source, and E2E. I find it better and more reliable than SN.

[1] https://notesnook.com [2] https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook

> securely hosted on your own device

> doesn't store your data on external servers

> sync effortlessly, allowing you to access your data from any device, anywhere

I'm not even going to give this a shake. Lots of marketing faff and no substance.

The Github repo for this app is here: https://github.com/Daniele-rolli/Beaver-Notes

Yeah, you can navigate to it from their site by clicking on the “Reddit” icon at the bottom or you can navigate to their subreddit by clicking the “Github” icon.

Weird to start a project in js instead of TypeScript these days. That doesn't give a good feeling about his privacy-focused app which will probably have plenty of subtle bugs and security holes.

I’ve been using zettlr [1] for the same thing. Been pretty happy with it.

[1] https://www.zettlr.com/

Are notes stored in the filesystem, like plain filles following a hierarchy based on folders (like Obsidian) or is it using some kind of indexed storage?

The app stores notes in a on-device database using Vue for the backend.

I am noticing a heavy GPT accent from the OP.

Two big questions: How does it store notes and will there be an Android port?

I currently use Google Keep partly because of all the platform integration with Wear and Assistant, and the fast opening speed.

My ideal Notes system would have Keep's UI, performance, and deep integrations, maybe with a little more advanced organization and calendar support, and just store files as SyncThing compatible markdown.

A platform has to really offer a lot before I would want to put notes in some proprietary format that won't be easy to switch to some other tool.

hmm I think I prefer my selfhosted Trilium thank you

https://github.com/zadam/trilium

Thanks for sharing your preference! It's great to see that you're using Trilium for your self-hosted note-taking needs. Everyone has their own favorite tools, and I'm glad you found one that suits you. If you ever decide to give Beaver Notes a try, I'd be curious to know your thoughts on it. Happy note-taking!

Nice use of TipTap and Vue!

As the files are just on the file system, what's the sync story? Have you tackled merging conflicting edits across devices?

Thanks for your interest in Beaver Notes! As of now, I don't offer sync functionality. All notes are stored locally on your device, and there's no automatic synchronization across devices. You can manually use cloud storage options like Google Drive or Dropbox for syncing if needed. Merging conflicting edits isn't supported at this stage. Your feedback is essential, and I'm continually working to enhance Beaver Notes!

> As of now, I don't offer sync functionality

Then why does your top-level comment say "Your notes sync effortlessly"?

This need show HN:

Do baby beavers grow up to be bears?

Kagi Summarized home page: "Bear is a simple yet powerful note taking app that allows users to capture, write and organize notes using Markdown. It offers a minimal and beautiful interface that stays out of the user's way while providing powerful tools for taking notes, planning and writing. The app has won an Apple Design Award for its universal beauty. Bear offers both free and paid PRO versions, with the PRO version providing extra features like OCR search, more export options and iCloud syncing across devices. Overall, Bear aims to provide a simple yet elegant solution for users' note taking needs."

-- https://bear.app/

Kagi "Key Moments" or takeaways from home page:

- Bear is a note taking app that allows users to capture, write and organize notes using Markdown.

- It has a simple and minimal interface that stays out of the user's way.

- Notes are encrypted for privacy and Bear claims they cannot see user notes.

- Users can organize notes with tags and folders.

- Bear has features like sketching, image resizing and cropping, and outlining.

- Bear is available on Mac, iPhone and iPad.

- There is a free version with basic features and a PRO version with more features for a subscription fee.

- Reviews praise Bear for its simplicity, power and organization features.

- Users can export notes in multiple formats like PDF, HTML and DOCX.

- Bear aims to provide a beautiful and simple tool for users to capture and organize their ideas.

-- https://kagi.com/summarizer/index.html?url=https%3A%2F%2Fbea...

For Windows and Linux consider apps such as Typora:

- Typora is a markdown editor and reader that aims to provide a distraction free writing experience with seamless live previews.

- It offers a simple yet powerful set of markdown features like images, headers, lists, tables, code highlighting, math support, and diagrams.

- It focuses on helping users concentrate on the content by handling accessibility, organization, and export/import of files.

- Features like the outline panel, word count, focus mode, and auto pair help improve the writing experience.

- Users can customize Typora with their own themes using CSS.

- Typora is available for macOS, Linux, and Windows operating systems.

- There is a 15 day free trial available, after which users can purchase a license for $14.99 instead of having to subscribe.

- The app aims to provide a natural writing experience according to positive user feedback.

- Typora is updated regularly, with version 1.6 released on May 22.

- The development team can be reached via email, Twitter, or their issue tracker for support and feedback.

-- https://typora.io/

Or jump right to Obsidian if you want the kitchen sink. The point of Markdown with "frontmatter" is that your files are your files, fully portable, to most any tool. For example, an Obsidian vault can also be edited with Foam in VSCode after some tuning of Foam and Obsidian settings.

Introduction: Beaver Notes, the privacy-focused note-taking app, is making waves among tech enthusiasts and power users alike. Built on an open-source foundation, this cross-platform gem is raising the bar for secure and intuitive note management. Join the ranks of privacy-conscious professionals who are embracing Beaver Notes for its robust architecture, seamless cross-platform compatibility, and powerful features.

Privacy-First Approach: In a world where data privacy is paramount, Beaver Notes takes center stage. The app's encryption ensures that all your sensitive information stays safe and accessible only to you. Unlike other note-taking platforms, Beaver Notes doesn't store your data on external servers, ensuring that your notes remain strictly under your control.

Open-Source Community: With Beaver Notes being open-source, developers worldwide unite to create a privacy-first note-taking solution. You can explore, review, and even contribute to the app's source code on GitHub. Embracing the power of community collaboration, Beaver Notes is continually evolving and adapting to meet users' needs.

Command Prompt Magic: Discover the magic of Beaver Notes' command prompt feature. With simple and efficient commands, you can create, edit, and manage notes, access settings, and switch themes – all without leaving your keyboard. Elevate your productivity and streamline your workflow with this intuitive tool.

Seamless Note Linking: Beaver Notes introduces a unique note linking mechanism using the @@ syntax. Interconnect related notes effortlessly, creating a web of interconnected thoughts. Experience the power of structured organization and seamless navigation through your ideas.

Powerful Tagging System: Tame the chaos with Beaver Notes' robust tagging system. Group your thoughts, ideas, and projects with ease using tags. Stay focused and find the information you need with quick and powerful searches.

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Whether you're on Windows, macOS, or Linux, Beaver Notes ensures a seamless note-taking experience across all platforms. Your notes sync effortlessly, allowing you to access your data from any device, anywhere.

Conclusion: Beaver Notes is more than just a note-taking app; it's a community-driven project that values your privacy and productivity. Join the Beaver Notes movement, and embrace the power of open-source, privacy-first note management. Elevate your note-taking experience and unleash your productivity potential with Beaver Notes – the ultimate choice for tech enthusiasts and privacy advocates.

Your GitHub link in the footer doesn't appear to be linking to anything

Same as the other links there. They just link to `#`.

As of now it links to Reddit and the Reddit icon links to Github.

The marketing turbobabble alone is enough to put me off. This is Hacker News not a listicle review site.

It also shows signs of being llm-generated.

Kudos for building a thing! Forgive the terse feedback, but I figure you wouldn’t post here if you weren’t seeking it. Quick thoughts:

A) Without providing a viable option for mobile (or even via a web UI on mobile), my guess would be that a desktop-client-only solution (like this appears to be?) is going to be a non-starter for a significant number of your potential audience. To me, cross-platform doesn’t just mean cross-desktop-OS - If something says cross-platform my personal expectation is that means desktop/mobile/web.

B) If your top-level value proposition is a focus on privacy and security, people are naturally going to ask further questions about the details. For example: - What encryption is being used here, and how? - If data isn’t stored on external servers, how do “your notes sync effortlessly”? What mechanism makes it possible to “access your data from any device, anywhere”? - How do I get my data OUT of this thing, if I decide it isn’t right for me?

C) If you’re going to go down the “unlike other note-taking platforms” route, it might be valuable to explicitly help people make the comparison in terms of features/approaches/architecture/trade-offs etc. How should one compare this against [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md)? [Simplenote](https://simplenote.com)? [Logseq](https://logseq.com/)? [Zettlr](https://www.zettlr.com/)? [Standard Notes](https://standardnotes.com)? Notion/Google Keep/Evernote/Workflowy/Dynalist etc?

Thanks for sharing your opinion. Firstly, there was an oversight, as stated in a follow-up post we don't offer sync across devices as of now. Secondly, I understand your thoughts on cross-platform availability, and it's totally normal to have a different view on the topic. Thirdly, although I don't like to compare my work with bigger projects, I can say, out of personal preference, that I've tried them all, and I always struggled with organizing my thoughts or having decently formatted notes. On top of that, most of them are closed-source and closed-source apps aren't my cup of tea.

FYI, the Github and Reddit icon links at the bottom of your page are reversed.

I wish these days projects stopped marketing cross-platform meaning as just MacOS, Linux, Windows. In this particular situation for note-taking app it's nice when you are switching from windows to linux or macos or vice versa but most likely most people don't own 2 desktops. It's more useful to sync notes between your smartphone, tablet and desktop that between different desktops only.

Thanks for your feedback. I get your frustration and I'm sorry this project doesn't fit your requirements. Just a couple of minutes ago another user on Reddit asked me about mobile support and as of now it is still an idea. However, as I am a beginner developer, I trust the community to help me build the mobile client.

You could probably still workaround this if the data was stored just in simple markdown files. This way someone can:

- still use Beaver Notes on desktop

- use any syncing mechanism such as syncthing, icloud, dropbox, oneDrive etc

- use any mobile note taking app that using similar single markdown files for storage (e.g. obsidian)

Apologies to everyone, there has been an oversight in the writing of this post. The app doesn't offer the sync functionality as of now; however, we are planning on providing a mobile client and sync functionality in the future.

> developers worldwide unite

> it's a community-driven project

And from GitHub:

> vibrant community of developers

> our friendly team

Yet it seems to be just one person, right? This all reads to me like ChatGPT made it up, so it's hard to know what to believe in your descriptions.

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