flatnotes

flatnotes is a minimalist, self-hosted note-taking application that embraces simplicity and data ownership. Unlike heavyweight note-taking platforms that lock your content in proprietary databases, flatnotes stores every note as a plain Markdown file on your server—no vendor lock-in, no complex data structures, just pure text files you can access, edit, and backup using any tool. This database-less architecture means your notes remain portable, future-proof, and completely under your control. The clean interface strips away unnecessary features to focus on what matters: writing, organizing, and connecting ideas. With built-in support for wikilinks, tags, and full-text search, flatnotes transforms simple Markdown files into a personal knowledge management system without sacrificing simplicity.

Common Use Cases

Personal Knowledge Base: Build a second brain by capturing thoughts, research notes, and ideas in interconnected Markdown files. Use wikilinks to create relationships between concepts, building a personal wiki that grows with your understanding. Perfect for students, researchers, and lifelong learners who want to retain and connect knowledge over time without vendor lock-in. Developer Documentation: Maintain technical notes, code snippets, API references, and troubleshooting guides in plain Markdown. Quickly search across all notes to find that command you used months ago or that debugging technique that saved the day. Since files are plain text, they integrate seamlessly with Git workflows and can be edited with any text editor. Writing and Journaling: Keep a daily journal, draft blog posts, or organize creative writing projects in distraction-free Markdown. The WYSIWYG editor provides visual formatting when needed, while raw Markdown mode gives you complete control. Light and dark themes create a comfortable writing environment for any time of day. Project Planning and Task Management: Create project notes, meeting minutes, and task lists organized by tags and wikilinks. Full-text search makes it easy to find specific discussions or decisions across all your project documentation. The responsive design means you can check notes from any device, anywhere.

Key Features

• Database-less storage with all notes as plain Markdown files on disk
• Wikilinks for creating interconnected notes and building knowledge graphs
• Full-text search across all notes with instant results
• Tag-based organization for categorizing and filtering notes
• Dual editing modes: raw Markdown and WYSIWYG visual editor
• Real-time preview of Markdown rendering while writing
• Responsive design that works beautifully on desktop, tablet, and mobile
• Light and dark themes for comfortable reading in any environment
• Password authentication to protect your notes from unauthorized access
• File-based architecture that syncs with external editors and Git
• Instant sync when notes are edited outside the application
• Lightweight footprint with minimal resource requirements
• No vendor lock-in—your notes remain portable plain text files
• Simple backup strategy: copy the notes folder, nothing more needed
• Fast performance even with thousands of notes

Why deploy flatnotes on Hostinger VPS

Deploying flatnotes on Hostinger VPS gives you a private, always-accessible note-taking system without the privacy concerns, feature bloat, or subscription costs of commercial note apps. Self-hosting ensures your personal thoughts, research notes, and private journals remain entirely within your infrastructure—never scanned by AI, never mined for advertising, never subject to terms-of-service changes that could lock you out of your own data. The database-less architecture means backups are trivial: simply copy the notes folder, and you have a complete, human-readable archive of your knowledge. With VPS hosting, you can edit notes from any device with a browser while maintaining complete ownership of the underlying files. The file-based storage integrates beautifully with existing workflows—edit notes directly with vim, sync them with Git, or process them with command-line tools without fighting against a proprietary database. For developers, researchers, writers, and privacy-conscious individuals who want the convenience of web-based note-taking without sacrificing control, flatnotes on Hostinger VPS delivers the simplicity of Markdown with the accessibility of a modern web application. The lightweight design runs efficiently on modest VPS resources, and the plain-text storage means you'll never face migration headaches if you decide to change tools—your notes are already in the most portable format possible.