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thecodrr · 4 years ago
Hello everyone, lead developer of Notesnook here.

We started out development of Notesnook a year ago with the aim of providing a 100% privacy focused note-taking app. At the time, Standard Notes was getting the spotlight for it's privacy fearures. However, it lacked many essential things that we thought were important: 1. Very bad mobile app experience 2. Hard to navigate and use 3. No community 4. No customer-developer communication

We built Notesnook to address these short comings. In the process, we realized that note-taking is unnecessarily hard nowadays. With platforms like Notion leading the way, private and personal note-taking has been pushed to the far back.

Notesnook brings features like 100% client-side encryption (using Argon2 & xchacha20-ietf-poly1305), an easy to use intuitive user interface (strictly following 2-tap philosophy), sensible organization (through notebooks, topics, tags & colors).

We are currently laying the groundwork for features such as:

1. Note publishing 2. Secure collaborative note sharing 3. Mobile app widgets 4. Extensions (much like VSCode)

There are many more features in the app that you can easily preview on the website: https://notesnook.com

We have also set up a Discord server where you can directly come and chat with us: https://discord.gg/YHkTRDtAuj

Thank you! Hope you like the app. :)

tibu · 4 years ago
Verification email comes from another name and domain. Would be worth to sync it with the app name. I almost did not find it.
thecodrr · 4 years ago
Yes, that is intentional. We are using a central identity provider for auth, that's why.

I will take this into account though.

k1rcher · 4 years ago
This looks really interesting, will check it out- the privacy aspect is very intriguing.

However I must say that I find myself having difficulties adapting to a new note taking environment. I always seem to drift back to simple markdown notes in my preferred editor.

Perhaps this is due to ease of access and how efficiently I am able to write markdown. The only real issue I have with this system is organization. It’s very difficult to track down a specific note in a file that I have not worked on recently.

For more general note taking and journaling I still prefer pen and paper, but that is a whole other topic of discussion :)

thecodrr · 4 years ago
Hey, thanks for checking Notesnook out.

I was myself a pen & paper user for notes. That is why I designed Notesnook organization system around the concept of notebooks & topics because they are very easy to get used to:

A notebook has multiple topics that can have multiple notes. (A single note can be under multiple topics - for flexibility).

As for markdown, Notesnook supports most of the markdown spec so you won't have any problem there.

I tried to make the app as simple and easy to use as possible because I am aware of how clunky and un-user-friendly many note-taking apps are. The aim is not to redesign (or reinvent) how to take notes but to improve & simplify it.

k1rcher · 4 years ago
I love the sound of that.

So far I think the UX is incredibly sleek from my brief usage of the iOS app. Writing markdown feels really good, this will be a large improvement from the stock iOS app.

Excited to check out the VS Code extension and desktop experience.

fermienrico · 4 years ago
I hate these damn illustrations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_memphis

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-...

It's cliche. It is obnoxious. They serve absolutely zero purpose. Get rid of them.

sebmellen · 4 years ago
How does this compare to https://standardnotes.org?
thecodrr · 4 years ago
Standard Notes is an amazing app and it was actually our first inspiration in creating a privacy-focused note-taking app.

Security & encryption wise, both apps use the same encryption algorithms, afaik.

However, Standard Notes is expensive ($9/m) whereas Notesnook is only $4.49/mo.

Notesnook's organization is more flexible; it has tags, colors, notebooks & topics. In comparison, Standard Notes only offers colors and tags.

Notesnook's mobile app experience is almost the same as the web verison. There's almost 1:1 feature parity. Whereas in Standard Notes, the mobile version lacks many of the main features.

We also have more export options (you can export notes as pdf, html, md or txt). On the mobile app, there's also Quick Share that allows you to share any text or link directly into the app without switching contexts (apps).

commoner · 4 years ago
The Standard Notes clients, server, and extensions are open source (AGPLv3 license):

https://github.com/standardnotes

There is an empty repo for Notesnook:

https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook

Will Notesnook also become open source, or will it remain proprietary?

mrunseen · 4 years ago
Is it $4.49[1] or $6.99[2]? $6.99 screenshot is from live editor.

[1]https://i.imgur.com/I1irh9a.png

[2]https://i.imgur.com/c5hz4eq.png

thecodrr · 4 years ago
Whoops. My bad. It's 4.49 dollars. Fixing it right now. Thanks for trying it out
thecodrr · 4 years ago
Fixed.
Armic · 4 years ago
Found another issue - in the ipad app changing the font size doesnt change the size indicator
Armic · 4 years ago
This looks really cool! Any plans to offer one time payment as an alternative to subscriptions? Also heads up clicking login on your main website didn't work for me - I had to use signup to go to app.notesnook.com and then switch to the login modal
thecodrr · 4 years ago
Whoops. Good catch. Fixed it right now.

As for one-time subscription, no unfortunately not. I personally don't think it's sustainable because we'll be rolling out releases often. The $4.49 subscription gives us a good breathing room and support to work on more features. In return our users get new features and bug fixes very fast.

thmhn · 4 years ago
Hi, this looks promising. I'm currently looking for an app to take study notes, which include a lot of mathematical equations. Would Notesnook support this? Thank you!
thecodrr · 4 years ago
Hey, thanks for checking Notesnook out!

Yes! We are currently internally testing MathJax support in Notesnook so it'll be out and about soon.

andrewinardeer · 4 years ago
How can I install this on my Android phone if I am running GraoheneOS which is Google-free? Can I download the app from somewhere?
thecodrr · 4 years ago
You can use the AuroraStore[1] to download the app seamlessly. Otherwise, you can use any Play Store APK downloader.

[1] https://auroraoss.com/download/AuroraStore/