13 ms·

Show HN: Supernotes 2 – a fast, Markdown notes app for journalling and sharing

251 points by fastball 5y ago

Hi HN – we first launched Supernotes[1] to HN in April 2020, and since then Tobias and I (it's just the two of us) have put in the work to make what we hope is an amazing note-taking app. Although the note-taking / personal knowledge management landscape is incredibly competitive at the moment (with lots of great apps adding great new features every day), we think that with the newly released Supernotes 2 we're keeping pace and delivering a unique and satisfying knowledge management experience. Here's the combination of features that make us stand out: - a powerful markdown-based notecard system that is simple/beautiful but also super flexible - a WYSIWYM[2] editor that keeps markdown marks for explicitness while still giving you a preview of what the content looks like when rendered - eschewing a folder system in favor of multi-parent nested hierarchies - unique collaboration system that is optimized for granular sharing between individuals rather than "all-in" sharing amongst teams or specific groups - notes that can be linked both with inline bidirectional links or the aforementioned hierarchies, allowing you to build (and experience with our 2D and 3D graph views) a robust graph of your knowledge There are of course tons of other cool features that are included as well, but those are the highlights. If any of that sounds interesting to you, you can sign up here[3] – we would love to hear any feedback you might have! [1] https://supernotes.app/?ref=hn https://supernotes.app/?ref=hn [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM [3] https://my.supernotes.app/entry?signup=1&ref=hn https://my.supernotes.app/entry?signup=1&ref=hn

boplicity 5y ago
This looks great, but I'm getting very sick of software with recurring monthly fees. I get that it's more profitable for companies, and maybe I'm being a curmudgeon, but what happened to software you could actually buy once and then use forever?
- paxys 5y ago
  The subscription model makes sense if the bulk of the application is running on the company's servers, but for something like this I totally agree. I wish they'd at least offer their core app as a standalone product and charge monthly for features like online storage and sync.
- aantix 5y ago
  It depends on your expectations - do you assume that the software will be maintained indefinitely with security fixes, bug fixes, features, etc?
  - disintegore 5y ago
    Security fixes, bug fixes, features (etc) also help with future sales. Monthly billing is not and never was for the benefit of end users.
  - toss1 5y ago
    Considering that Steve Ballmer once pointed out that "revving software is insanely profitable", there is no reason that companies couldn't use the model of selling new revisions every year or so, which the users are free to purchase upgrades or skip. It also provides a better incentive to write better software (so the users don't skip more revs). The only reason to not do this is that subscriptions are even more profitable, more rent-seeking, and more extractive
    - samhw 5y ago
      That works fine for purely client-side software, such as was common in the 90s. Photoshop would be a great model of that. For such software, the only, or main, cost is R&D, and you pay for their R&D for each new version. It doesn't work so well for software like this, where one of the main selling points is that all your notes are stored in the cloud and can be retrieved on any new device (or by opening the website in a tab). That's a marginal cost which is directly proportional to your actual use of the tool itself - not an R&D cost which relates to developing the code. I understand objecting to software where the SaaS/cloud aspect is tacked on as an afterthought, to justify a subscription model – again Photoshop is an example – but that's not what's going on here. It's eminently reasonable for this software to be subscription-based. In short: It's reasonable for a car to be a one-off purchase, but it doesn't work the same way for the gas.
      - kitsunesoba 5y ago
        Even with Photoshop, eventually the product was complete enough that most users felt little need to upgrade even after multiple releases (I’m one such user — PS 7/CS1/CS2 is more than adequate and almost every feature added since is superfluous). They basically ran out of compelling features to add, which pushed them in the direction of subscriptions. Not that I like subscriptions (quite the opposite) but I think most client only software will eventually hit that saturation point where sales dip and ongoing support becomes questionable. I think this is more true of indie/small devs than of gigacorps, though. Adobe probably could’ve massages their strategy to make things work with single time purchases, but an indie doesn’t have nearly as much latitude.
- bmurphy1976 5y ago
  I don't mind that any one company is charging a monthly fee, what's frustrating is that every company is charging a monthly fee. It's getting very difficult and prohibitively expensive overall to manage all these subscriptions. In this case, the product looks nice but I'm struggling to justify the cost (as I have for every other note taking app I've tried). I just need a convenient way to get Markdown docs synced across a couple of my devices and so far Joplin (originally synced via Dropbox but now synced via a Nextcloud raspberry pi server I'm running) has gotten the job done.
- dotancohen 5y ago
  I actually like paying periodically for software that get good upgrades and bugfixes, such as the Jetbrains editors. And getting an over-the-hill Debian CLI VIM user like myself to switch development environments is no easy task, but Jetbrains makes products that good. However, $8 monthly for a notes-taking app? I'm sticking with Org-mode and Evil. I'd consider it for $1 - $2 per month, but $8 is monthly is actually more than I pay Jetbrains. For a note-taking app.
  - boplicity 5y ago
    Actually -- Jetbrains is a little different, in that you can buy and own the software (effectively). You just have to pay for updates, once your license expires.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      True, but I do pay them yearly and I'm more than happy to do so. Even though half the year I'm using the free EAP editions anyway.
- deleted 5y ago
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- deleted 5y ago
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stopyellingatme 5y ago
Mind if I ask what software stack is being used here?
- tobeagram 5y ago
  - React - PostgreSQL - SocketIO - Redis - Python/FastAPI - Nginx That’s the bones of it – Tobias (Co-founder)
deleted 5y ago
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yosito 5y ago
This app looks very nice, and I love markdown. But I am not prepared to pay £8+ per month for a Markdown notes app that works on all my devices, especially if it exerts control over what I can do with my own files. I can sync my Markdown directory via Dropbox, iCloud, Nextcloud, etc and edit the files with things like Obsidian, 1Writer, VSCode or any one of hundreds of Markdown editors.
- WaltonGoggins 5y ago
  It's £6 per month if you pay yearly. Also if you are a student you can get a 50% discount. Honestly it costs a negligible amount, that's less than a single day's worth of travel on the tube.
  - renw0rp 5y ago
    I just wanted to say that you could try a bit harder to justify the price rather than just saying it's "negligible". I think that's very subjective and I personally don't think it's a reasonable price to pay for just storing markdown files in the cloud.
    - liampmccabe 5y ago
      "just storing markdown files" Ironically you could do the same with your replies.
      - samhw 5y ago
        Yeah, I 100% agree. It's rather tonedeaf to criticise that commenter for diminishing the cost, and then diminish in exactly the same way the work involved in creating this. And I'm so tired of the game of "describe a successful tech product in a way that makes it sound silly". Yeah, Twitter is just storing a load of VARCHAR(240)s, and Facebook is just an undirected graph, and Jackson Pollock's paintings are just splatters, etc. I could build it myself! Except... I don't, because it's not that easy, and I know it isn't when I think about it for more than 1.7 seconds.
caslon 5y ago
I'm going to get ahead of the curve and warn everyone: Yes, Electron web application. Yes, noticeable input delay. Yes, memory consumption is how you might expect it to be. They distribute on Linux with an AppImage, though, which at least isn't a Snap or Flatpak, so there's that, I guess. If you want a non-proprietary Electron application, take a look at Logseq, or Athens (YC some year that I'm too lazy to look up). If you want a non-proprietary non-Electron application, Emacs has a Roam mode, and a couple other Zettelkasten modes. If you want all that, but you don't care about proprietary operating systems and you want it following the Apple HIG, the popularizer of the Zettelkasten method did it via Textmate. If you don't mind those things, it's a shiny new application. You might enjoy it. The pricing model is a SaaS, and they lock down the API and limit the amount of entries you can have if you're using the free tier. Standard stuff. It's a very shiny application, and has a dark mode, apparently.
- Cenk 5y ago
  Just curious, do you really notice an input delay? Is there a way of measuring this? Because I tried to compare Supernotes to BBEdit and couldn’t tell the difference
  - caslon 5y ago
    I do, personally, but that might just be because I'm used to xedit, and have a monitor with a reasonably high refresh rate, a keyboard I purchased largely to lower input latency (which I find annoying), and a typing speed that's decent (120wpm). You can measure input latency relatively easily, but it's not as useful without a frame of reference. Here are a couple internet posts on doing exactly that: https://danluu.com/term-latency/ https://danluu.com/term-latency/ http://renderingpipeline.com/2013/09/measuring-input-latency/ http://renderingpipeline.com/2013/09/measuring-input-latency... If you're not wanting to go out of your way to measure it, though, there's a pretty straightforward way you can get a feel for it: Pay attention to when the glyph appears on the screen, versus when the click of the keypress happens. For example, in xedit, I press 't', and the appearance of the glyph occurs almost simultaneously with the click. The click and the appearance happen much more noticeably asynchronously with Electron applications, including this one.
danpalmer 5y ago
I'm not sure 40 cards is enough to build the habits and value necessary to justify £8 a month. A free tier with unlimited cards but no sync/local only, could help to get users into seeing value. Also, as much as I'd like to use this, I can't use it due to work security policies. Having a local-only mode with no telemetry would be great. I'd happily pay a one-off for this (after trialling).
- fastball 5y ago
  Yep, it's a hard line to straddle. The thinking behind our monetization is that we don't want to paywall any features, so the only difference is the card limit (well that and at the moment our mobile apps are in private early access, but we will release those on the App Stores publicly soon). The other issue is that many (most?) other apps in the space try to hook individuals with free plans and then convince their work/school/etc that they need a shared workspace, focusing on a B2B model. But our goal is to cater to users who are not necessarily on any particular team but rather occasionally want to share with specific other people (mom, friend, lover, co-worker, etc). As such we have no B2B model and so must monetize B2C slightly more aggressively than similar apps since that's who we're building for. That being said, feel free to use the code "HACKERNEWS2022" if you'd like to get a few more cards to test us out. :)
- ajacksified 5y ago
  > A free tier with unlimited cards but no sync/local only, could help to get users into seeing value. Quite the opposite, for me. Local storage is far more valuable.
og_pixel 5y ago
App looks useful but Markdown as a service? And no self hosting even in premium?
mythz 5y ago
This looks nice if you need to use its features however for me Notable [1] is the perfectly minimal & Free Markdown Notes App that does everything I need from a Notes/TODOs App: has a quick UI to manage a static directory of Markdown files, with search, tags & pinned notes. No vendor lock-in since it maintains its features requiring metadata in frontmatter in simple .md files that's easy to open with VS Code, backup in git, etc. It's the only Notes App that's stuck over using Notepad.exe for writing quick notes. [1] https://notable.app https://notable.app
- SomeHacker44 5y ago
  I could not find pricing for Noteable on its page. At least, not on mobile. Is it free? If so, what kind of free?
  - mythz 5y ago
    Yep it's completely free, i.e. has no ads or any "premium" features you'd need to pay to unlock. Just a simple free minimal Markdown App. From the Source code it suggests the author was exploring sustainability options, however that was last updated in 2019 so it's not clear if that's still the plan. https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/master/SOURCE_CODE.md https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/master/SOURCE_CODE.m...
- lf-non 5y ago
  Not related to featureset/usability of the app, but this is super weird: https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/32b8e969e9a3f49f83521a782c433e7269ff2e35/.github/LANGUAGE.ts https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/32b8e969e9a3f49f8352... If the app is not open-source why would I ever care about what language its written in.
paulcole 5y ago
What major competitors aren’t amazing and aren’t beautiful?
- fastball 5y ago
  I agree that there are a lot of great looking apps in the space these days, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we have a lot of users that have come over from other apps in large part because they like how we present things visually!
  - paulcole 5y ago
    Yeah, you’re the beholder here. Tell me what you’re beholding.
AitchEmArsey 5y ago
Looks great - so much so that I assumed it would be for Apple devices only, so congratulations and thanks for the Linux support. I'll try it in a bake-off with Obsidian, but the main down-side for me is "notes stored on our servers" - I'd happily sacrifice the collaboration features for a self-hosted option with my data kept as regular text files as much as possible.
- fastball 5y ago
  Obsidian is great, and if you're looking for affordable, preferably self-hosted, highly customizable Markdown note-taking it is almost certainly the better option. We're trying to be a slightly different kind of app though, where syncing isn't something our users ever have to think about and where collaborating and sharing is as accessible and seamless as possible (among many other goals!) And yes, that means we're probably (on the whole) a worse match for the highly technical/conscientious HN crowd, where the aforementioned selling points of an app like Obsidian are in higher demand. Also a shoutout to Logseq (as mentioned by others in this thread) which is also a great option if you're looking for that kind of app.
  - mahathu 5y ago
    Can i export your data as markdown?
    - chrisweekly 5y ago
      Unaffiliated but I noticed (not verbatim) "export to pdf or markdown, or use the api to export to other formats or services"
    - heinrichhartman 5y ago
      The documentation states, that you can export "all the cards in the current Noteboard as a ZIP of markdown files" [1] So it looks like exporting is limited to a single "Noteboard". Without bulk export (better sync) features of all documents, this service is a complete non-started for me. [1] https://docs.supernotes.app/en/articles/3068672-exporting-printing#export-as-markdown https://docs.supernotes.app/en/articles/3068672-exporting-pr...
jayflux 5y ago
Looks good, but not being able to access the raw files means tools like foam won’t work https://github.com/foambubble/foam https://github.com/foambubble/foam . There’s a whole community using foam that would appreciate an app like this. To be fair you mention you have your own knowledge map utilities built in so maybe that’s good enough to use directly. I just didn’t notice that looking at your website. Price seems a little high, it’s higher than Evernote which does have some minimal markdown support now and offline editing. This would need more features to justify the cost but that’s just imo. > As soon as you are disconnected from the internet Supernotes will enter a 'read-only' mode. You will still be able to browse, read and search your notes, like so: Is this the same with the app? If I’m out some place with no signal can I write/update a note? It would be frustrating having to wait for your phone to connect first.
mwcampbell 5y ago
I'm always curious about the tech choices in desktop applications that say they're fast, so I downloaded this one and was a bit surprised to find that it's an Electron app. I'm not here to criticize that, though. Instead, I'm curious about what Electron build toolchain the developers are using. Maybe my knowledge of Electron build tools is a bit behind, but this is the first time I've seen an Electron app where, in the Windows version at least, both the x64 and ARM64 versions are packaged in the same installer (inevitably doubling the download size), and the installation is done using NSIS. It looks like there's some kind of updater, but it's not Squirrel. So I'm just curious about whether an open-source tool was used to put all of this together.
- samhw 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure 'fast' is referring to the runtime performance rather than the download size. (The latter does sound less than ideal, but my hunch is that most people simply do not care about download size, in this day and age.)
samhw 5y ago
Thank you so much for building this. I've been looking for something that's like Notion but without its horrendous performance issues, and ideally with some form of linking between notes (but without Roam's feeling that I might eventually die in a mass murder-suicide to ascend on a comet to the higher realms of note-taking). This is exactly what I was looking for. Please please please carry on developing this. There's a huge market for whoever gets this right - and, for as long as Notion continues on its current architectural path, no one holds the crown.
johnisgood 5y ago
It does look good, but I see no reason to use it over my .md and .org files.
maydup-nem 5y ago
how exciting
- maydup-nem 5y ago
  wait, what, it isnt'?
rasengan 5y ago
Looks great OP! I made a simple markdown editor as well [1] that lets you edit both with markdown or WYSIWYG and let’s you save files. It keeps your file in local storage as well and is completely open source. [1] https://markdown.doctor https://markdown.doctor
kkarimi 5y ago
It'd be nice to have more import options, from a local directory or git repository
jitl 5y ago
Congrats on the release! The HN convo about web-based apps usually turns into (a) “can I self-host or otherwise own my data”, and (b) “web is slow”. Maybe we can have a more constructive/informative/interesting conversation about how you think about performance! What are some practices & strategies you use to optimize performance? Do you use any automated benchmarking? How do you catch performance regressions? What kinds of metrics help guide your edit latency & load speed goals?
minroot 5y ago
Is the source code public?
- maydup-nem 5y ago
  how dare you
  - minroot 5y ago
    Why?
deleted 5y ago
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shane_b 5y ago
I wish I could use the mobile app before buying to see how it compares to notion. the notion ios app crawls. no doubt i’d be a customer if it’s snappy. i’ve been thinking of building my own alternative for speed.
- tobeagram 5y ago
  Tobias here (Co-founder). We will eventually publish the mobile apps on the App Stores, but for testing purposes we've made it subscriber-only as a little thanks for their support. Speed is our foremost priority!
bryanph_ 5y ago
Looks great! Some things I really like: * The "seamless" mode for all the views that removes action buttons. Feels kind of like an "exploration view". * New cards created on the home page are automatically added to a "daily" page (but can still be moved to another day). * I like how the sidebar is done, it doesn't get in the way as much as in other apps. * The "thoughts" collection, where notes without links go. The name is perhaps a little confusing though. What I don't really like: * The editor experience. I feel like a rich text experience might have been a better fit for this kind of application. I like markdown as a portable format, but not to write in. But that's pretty personal I guess.
0xferruccio 5y ago
This looks amazing. Love the attention to detail and focus on keyboard shortcuts. Also haven't seen a 3d visualisation of the relationship between my notes before. This is an incredibly impressive product for a team of two
TrevorJ 5y ago
I would love something like this if it easily supported media such as images, etc.
xixixao 5y ago
I’m curious how it stacks up with Bear? Is the main advantage not being Apple-locked?
dcchambers 5y ago
Based on a quick glance, it looks like this goes right at Notion but with Markdown based editing and rendering. I like that a lot. I want to love Notion, but I try to avoid proprietary formats for notes these days. Markdown is a dream IMO, so this looks like a great option for people that want a Notion-like experience but with a data preservation and export-friendly file format.
- confutio 5y ago
  AFAIK you do write Notion pages in Markdown and can export your whole workspace as markdown files.
thefuzz 5y ago
Sorry to highjack this thread, but I've been looking for an open-source alternative that can edit .md files, and sync them to a Github repo. I know my IDE can do this - but just wondered if a writing-specific app existed that was also open source? (if it's relevant: its for private thoughts that I'd like to just keep in a Github repo because its 1. Free and 2. Not going away anytime soon)
- rrrrrrrrrrrrr 5y ago
  You can use obsidian.md with a plug-in for that.
  - lucas_ 5y ago
    > I've been looking for an open-source alternative that can edit .md files, and sync them to a Github repo. Obsidian is not open-source tho.
    - jerrygoyal 5y ago
      logseq is open-source
- edtechdev 5y ago
  Logseq is free and open source https://logseq.com/ https://logseq.com/ You have to sync yourself though (for now). You can also publish to github pages. My only issues are: they are focusing more on the desktop and (now) mobile apps, instead of the web app. You can't quickly share items to the app or web version to quickly save links, etc. They did have github integration built into the web version but are abandoning that to work on their own paid sync solution that isn't out yet. But you can manually sync the files as I mentioned. For now I'm mainly sticking with a wiki but keeping an eye on developments to logseq and similar open source apps like Athens Research, Bangle, etc. See this twitter list of different knowledge management tools: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1396562498002825240 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1396562498002825240
- GordonS 5y ago
  On mobile I use GitJournal for this - it's an excellent app which I'm really happy with. On desktop, I just use VS Code.
jgstyle 5y ago
The design reminded me very much of Craft, which im using currently → What are the advantages of using a card base note system over a regular "file"based one? Obviously, I can see the "visual" difference, but in terms of actual usage, where's the difference?
theodorejb 5y ago
From the features page: > On Supernotes your data is always encrypted in transit (forced SSL) and encrypted at rest (AES-256). Our team will never read or access your note content, unless we have received your express permission during a customer support interaction. Sorry, but the fact that you can read it makes this a no-go for me. Unless a note-taking solution offers end-to-end encryption, I don't consider it a safe place for storing private information.
- porcc 5y ago
  presumably if you give them permission it includes sending them the content of the note, but if so the wording should change to say that explicitly
- fastball 5y ago
  Yep, to be explicit: Supernotes is not currently E2EE. It is something we'd certainly like to add in the future, but up until now our priority has been on building out UX and sharing features, which are somewhat at odds with E2EE (at least when it comes to what a 2-man team can reasonably accomplish). There is a delicate balance we want to strike here, as part of the goal of Supernotes is to give users peace of mind so that they don't need to worry about what happens if they lose their laptop and didn't have it backed up. We've been toying with some ideas that would allow more technical users to take matters into their own hands and take on the responsibility of managing their private keys themselves, but that isn't quite ready yet.
- reitanqild 5y ago
  Sorry, this is the day when I decided to start downvoting people who demand E2E-encryption from things that obviously don't need it. At this point I am just fed up, but to be constructive: - E2E-encryption is a seriously nice property. If it was free and simple we should use it everywhere. - Picking on nice things that absolutely doesn't need E2E-encryption however is just counterproductive, and most people who do so (I haven't studied you in particular) seems to have no clue about when and why it is useful. -Let me give some ideas: there seems to be lots of people who claim to need E2E-encryption but cannot take basic security precautions like separating work/personal, avoid linking their social media profile etc in their profile, etc etc etc. - Basically: if someone isn't wearing a cap, using tails, paying in cash, updating ones notes via a directed antenna connected to a distant open network - and if they haven't considered the pros and cons of connecting to the same network every time (what if "they" are onto one and are right now using a directional antenna to pinpoint ones direction) vs different ones (reduces that risk but simplifies triangulation) - and haven't considered their cover story for why they were out biking without a phone but with a laptop and a directional antenna, or considered cash (less traceable) or card (don't stand out) - ... then there is a fair chance they don't actually need E2E-encryption - and if they share the stuff they are hoarding, the chance is even bigger. - That said: again, E2E-encryption is a seriously nice property that simplifies a number of other problems. I'll pay premium for it even if I don't need it. But I don't need it for diary, not even for notes about customer systems. And as I write this I can almost hear glass shattering all around me. I'm logged in through corporate WiFi and I don't care ;-) Edit: let me also add that 1.) most people have now clue about how to verify E2E-encryption 2.) for web applications it can trivially be circumvented by anyone who can single handedly push code to prod and you won't know before much later 3.) it can be done selectively against one user and on most users it will leave no trace at all (a patched minified script with no caching that sends encryption keys back isn't hard at all, is it?)
andrewshadura 5y ago
No thanks, there's Joplin for an all-in-one solution, or Synching + Mark Text or any other markdown editor, completely free and open source.
throwoutway 5y ago
Looks great, and I wish you luck, but I'd rather pay for a binary+license for major updates, not pay monthly for a lock-in subscription. That, or a large one-time lifetime license like Plex
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
nbzso 5y ago
In recent years, I created a habit of limiting sharing of data. I have a local backups and encrypted backups on my server. Cloud sharing is for limited use-cases with unavoidable scenarios. For the rest, after fighting with Emacs Org-mode I settled to plain markdown with Obsidian.
doteka 5y ago
Not to take a dump on this product in particular but at this point I feel like there are more note-taking apps out there than people willing to pay for a note taking app. Why does everybody and their dog think that competing with the thing that comes with all my devices for free (Apple Notes, Google Keep) is a great business opportunity? I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this.
- reidjs 5y ago
  Neither of those apps do markdown, which I NEED, so I pay for a markdown note app
  - aikinai 5y ago
    What is the advantage of Markdown over rich text without extra characters?
    - flutetornado 5y ago
      For a lot of things such as tables, lists, adding links, etc, markdown allows you to do it "inline" while typing, instead of forcing out of band operations.
    - dotancohen 5y ago
      Markdown files can be backed up offline, version controlled with Git, grepped (in-file text search) and finded (search for filenames), parsed with awk perl or sed (yes, sorry, I've done that more often than I like to admit), edited with VIM (I live in VIM), and many other advantages.
    - reidjs 5y ago
      In addition to what the other posters mentioned, markdown/plaintext is easier to work with for automation tasks. For example I schedule tweets through markdown files https://github.com/reidjs/markdown-tweet-scheduler https://github.com/reidjs/markdown-tweet-scheduler
      - 5y ago
dotancohen 5y ago
I'm happily syncing org-mode with git, so I might not be your target market, but I consider every new note-taking app as I don't think that anyone's got it perfect yet. My constructive feedback is solely the cost. I get that the servers are expensive and I actually do prefer to pay rather than worry that the lights of my note-taking app might go out some day. But $8 per month is far too steep. For $1 per month I'd sign up and feel like I'm getting a bargain, and tell my friends. For $2 per month I'd seriously consider signing up but it's not a given. Any more than that, and I can't really consider the app.
TameAntelope 5y ago
The absolute best part of HN for me, personally, is seeing people complete/ship their projects. I am always so impressed by folks who take something in their head and turn it into a usable, shippable thing. Very good work!
instaheat 5y ago
Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that the email confirmation link I received indicates my link has expired when it has been no more than a few minutes.
angryasian 5y ago
I didn't see how to backup and store files locally. Not owning my own notes would be the biggest concern for me. If I were to ever quit your service I want to still be able to keep my notes and have them be usable in obsidian as an example
huydotnet 5y ago
Kudos to Supernotes, it was very nice to include the list of alternatives/competitors on your product's page! https://supernotes.app/alternatives/ https://supernotes.app/alternatives/
goodpoint 5y ago
Why markdown when there are much better formats like AsciiDoc?
xanaxagoras 5y ago
Looks nice. Can't purchase the product for money. Not E2EE, can't self-host. Pass.
krono 5y ago
I really like all these gentle constraints. Total freedom note apps are no match for my ADHD brain, but this one might just stand a chance :)
oweiler 5y ago
First creating an account for testing it out is a no-go for me.
- maydup-nem 5y ago
  don't bother. they are downvoting anybody who still has a shred of self-respect.
watmough 5y ago
Well snap. I was thinking about dipping my toe in this space. If anyone wants to give me $6 Million, with 100% return in the event of my death, I'm all ears.
coreyog 5y ago
Created an account, "We've given you 40 cards, you can get up to 20 more cards by inviting your...", deleted account.
strontian 5y ago
Your website has cute style! Curious what it’s made with
aiisjustanif 5y ago
What advantages does the have over Joplin? Joplin is free and has a lot of these features.
dankwizard 5y ago
Are there any screenshot previews?
- tobeagram 5y ago
  Even better, we have a video preview of each feature that you can flick between using the left and right arrow keys – https://supernotes.app/features/notecards https://supernotes.app/features/notecards
gregwebs 5y ago
This looks a lot like Simplenote [1] at its core but adding on additional features that make it super instead of simple :) A big difference between the two though is that Simplenote is free whereas Supernotes is $6/month (free for < 40 notes). I think you could upsell Simplenote users if you had an import/export and a plan that was cheaper (perhaps a 50% discount if you pay for a whole year up front). [1] https://simplenote.com/ https://simplenote.com/
ALittleLight 5y ago
On the linked homepage I see "No ads. No trials. All our features are free!" But on the pricing page I see it costs money for 40+ cards. I'd consider unlimited cards a feature which makes the text on the homepage misleading (or just wrong). I do like the concept of cards being children of other cards. That fits how I think about things. In obsidian I use folders and links, but I'd really like the folders to have some top level text associated with them. I also think the price is way too high compared to free alternatives.
ipiz0618 5y ago
I've always wondered how people build such clean interface. One of the best UIs I've seen in a while. Nice work!

251 points by fastball 5y ago

boplicity 5y ago

This looks great, but I'm getting very sick of software with recurring monthly fees. I get that it's more profitable for companies, and maybe I'm being a curmudgeon, but what happened to software you could actually buy once and then use forever?

paxys 5y ago
The subscription model makes sense if the bulk of the application is running on the company's servers, but for something like this I totally agree. I wish they'd at least offer their core app as a standalone product and charge monthly for features like online storage and sync.
aantix 5y ago
It depends on your expectations - do you assume that the software will be maintained indefinitely with security fixes, bug fixes, features, etc?
- disintegore 5y ago
  Security fixes, bug fixes, features (etc) also help with future sales. Monthly billing is not and never was for the benefit of end users.
- toss1 5y ago
  Considering that Steve Ballmer once pointed out that "revving software is insanely profitable", there is no reason that companies couldn't use the model of selling new revisions every year or so, which the users are free to purchase upgrades or skip. It also provides a better incentive to write better software (so the users don't skip more revs). The only reason to not do this is that subscriptions are even more profitable, more rent-seeking, and more extractive
  - samhw 5y ago
    That works fine for purely client-side software, such as was common in the 90s. Photoshop would be a great model of that. For such software, the only, or main, cost is R&D, and you pay for their R&D for each new version. It doesn't work so well for software like this, where one of the main selling points is that all your notes are stored in the cloud and can be retrieved on any new device (or by opening the website in a tab). That's a marginal cost which is directly proportional to your actual use of the tool itself - not an R&D cost which relates to developing the code. I understand objecting to software where the SaaS/cloud aspect is tacked on as an afterthought, to justify a subscription model – again Photoshop is an example – but that's not what's going on here. It's eminently reasonable for this software to be subscription-based. In short: It's reasonable for a car to be a one-off purchase, but it doesn't work the same way for the gas.
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      Even with Photoshop, eventually the product was complete enough that most users felt little need to upgrade even after multiple releases (I’m one such user — PS 7/CS1/CS2 is more than adequate and almost every feature added since is superfluous). They basically ran out of compelling features to add, which pushed them in the direction of subscriptions. Not that I like subscriptions (quite the opposite) but I think most client only software will eventually hit that saturation point where sales dip and ongoing support becomes questionable. I think this is more true of indie/small devs than of gigacorps, though. Adobe probably could’ve massages their strategy to make things work with single time purchases, but an indie doesn’t have nearly as much latitude.
bmurphy1976 5y ago
I don't mind that any one company is charging a monthly fee, what's frustrating is that every company is charging a monthly fee. It's getting very difficult and prohibitively expensive overall to manage all these subscriptions. In this case, the product looks nice but I'm struggling to justify the cost (as I have for every other note taking app I've tried). I just need a convenient way to get Markdown docs synced across a couple of my devices and so far Joplin (originally synced via Dropbox but now synced via a Nextcloud raspberry pi server I'm running) has gotten the job done.
dotancohen 5y ago
I actually like paying periodically for software that get good upgrades and bugfixes, such as the Jetbrains editors. And getting an over-the-hill Debian CLI VIM user like myself to switch development environments is no easy task, but Jetbrains makes products that good. However, $8 monthly for a notes-taking app? I'm sticking with Org-mode and Evil. I'd consider it for $1 - $2 per month, but $8 is monthly is actually more than I pay Jetbrains. For a note-taking app.
- boplicity 5y ago
  Actually -- Jetbrains is a little different, in that you can buy and own the software (effectively). You just have to pay for updates, once your license expires.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    True, but I do pay them yearly and I'm more than happy to do so. Even though half the year I'm using the free EAP editions anyway.
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stopyellingatme 5y ago

Mind if I ask what software stack is being used here?

tobeagram 5y ago
- React - PostgreSQL - SocketIO - Redis - Python/FastAPI - Nginx That’s the bones of it – Tobias (Co-founder)

deleted 5y ago

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yosito 5y ago

This app looks very nice, and I love markdown. But I am not prepared to pay £8+ per month for a Markdown notes app that works on all my devices, especially if it exerts control over what I can do with my own files. I can sync my Markdown directory via Dropbox, iCloud, Nextcloud, etc and edit the files with things like Obsidian, 1Writer, VSCode or any one of hundreds of Markdown editors.

WaltonGoggins 5y ago
It's £6 per month if you pay yearly. Also if you are a student you can get a 50% discount. Honestly it costs a negligible amount, that's less than a single day's worth of travel on the tube.
- renw0rp 5y ago
  I just wanted to say that you could try a bit harder to justify the price rather than just saying it's "negligible". I think that's very subjective and I personally don't think it's a reasonable price to pay for just storing markdown files in the cloud.
  - liampmccabe 5y ago
    "just storing markdown files" Ironically you could do the same with your replies.
    - samhw 5y ago
      Yeah, I 100% agree. It's rather tonedeaf to criticise that commenter for diminishing the cost, and then diminish in exactly the same way the work involved in creating this. And I'm so tired of the game of "describe a successful tech product in a way that makes it sound silly". Yeah, Twitter is just storing a load of VARCHAR(240)s, and Facebook is just an undirected graph, and Jackson Pollock's paintings are just splatters, etc. I could build it myself! Except... I don't, because it's not that easy, and I know it isn't when I think about it for more than 1.7 seconds.

caslon 5y ago

I'm going to get ahead of the curve and warn everyone: Yes, Electron web application. Yes, noticeable input delay. Yes, memory consumption is how you might expect it to be. They distribute on Linux with an AppImage, though, which at least isn't a Snap or Flatpak, so there's that, I guess. If you want a non-proprietary Electron application, take a look at Logseq, or Athens (YC some year that I'm too lazy to look up). If you want a non-proprietary non-Electron application, Emacs has a Roam mode, and a couple other Zettelkasten modes. If you want all that, but you don't care about proprietary operating systems and you want it following the Apple HIG, the popularizer of the Zettelkasten method did it via Textmate. If you don't mind those things, it's a shiny new application. You might enjoy it. The pricing model is a SaaS, and they lock down the API and limit the amount of entries you can have if you're using the free tier. Standard stuff. It's a very shiny application, and has a dark mode, apparently.

Cenk 5y ago
Just curious, do you really notice an input delay? Is there a way of measuring this? Because I tried to compare Supernotes to BBEdit and couldn’t tell the difference
- caslon 5y ago
  I do, personally, but that might just be because I'm used to xedit, and have a monitor with a reasonably high refresh rate, a keyboard I purchased largely to lower input latency (which I find annoying), and a typing speed that's decent (120wpm). You can measure input latency relatively easily, but it's not as useful without a frame of reference. Here are a couple internet posts on doing exactly that: https://danluu.com/term-latency/ https://danluu.com/term-latency/ http://renderingpipeline.com/2013/09/measuring-input-latency/ http://renderingpipeline.com/2013/09/measuring-input-latency... If you're not wanting to go out of your way to measure it, though, there's a pretty straightforward way you can get a feel for it: Pay attention to when the glyph appears on the screen, versus when the click of the keypress happens. For example, in xedit, I press 't', and the appearance of the glyph occurs almost simultaneously with the click. The click and the appearance happen much more noticeably asynchronously with Electron applications, including this one.

danpalmer 5y ago

I'm not sure 40 cards is enough to build the habits and value necessary to justify £8 a month. A free tier with unlimited cards but no sync/local only, could help to get users into seeing value. Also, as much as I'd like to use this, I can't use it due to work security policies. Having a local-only mode with no telemetry would be great. I'd happily pay a one-off for this (after trialling).

fastball 5y ago
Yep, it's a hard line to straddle. The thinking behind our monetization is that we don't want to paywall any features, so the only difference is the card limit (well that and at the moment our mobile apps are in private early access, but we will release those on the App Stores publicly soon). The other issue is that many (most?) other apps in the space try to hook individuals with free plans and then convince their work/school/etc that they need a shared workspace, focusing on a B2B model. But our goal is to cater to users who are not necessarily on any particular team but rather occasionally want to share with specific other people (mom, friend, lover, co-worker, etc). As such we have no B2B model and so must monetize B2C slightly more aggressively than similar apps since that's who we're building for. That being said, feel free to use the code "HACKERNEWS2022" if you'd like to get a few more cards to test us out. :)
ajacksified 5y ago
> A free tier with unlimited cards but no sync/local only, could help to get users into seeing value. Quite the opposite, for me. Local storage is far more valuable.

og_pixel 5y ago

App looks useful but Markdown as a service? And no self hosting even in premium?

mythz 5y ago

This looks nice if you need to use its features however for me Notable [1] is the perfectly minimal & Free Markdown Notes App that does everything I need from a Notes/TODOs App: has a quick UI to manage a static directory of Markdown files, with search, tags & pinned notes. No vendor lock-in since it maintains its features requiring metadata in frontmatter in simple .md files that's easy to open with VS Code, backup in git, etc. It's the only Notes App that's stuck over using Notepad.exe for writing quick notes. [1] https://notable.app https://notable.app

SomeHacker44 5y ago
I could not find pricing for Noteable on its page. At least, not on mobile. Is it free? If so, what kind of free?
- mythz 5y ago
  Yep it's completely free, i.e. has no ads or any "premium" features you'd need to pay to unlock. Just a simple free minimal Markdown App. From the Source code it suggests the author was exploring sustainability options, however that was last updated in 2019 so it's not clear if that's still the plan. https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/master/SOURCE_CODE.md https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/master/SOURCE_CODE.m...
lf-non 5y ago
Not related to featureset/usability of the app, but this is super weird: https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/32b8e969e9a3f49f83521a782c433e7269ff2e35/.github/LANGUAGE.ts https://github.com/notable/notable/blob/32b8e969e9a3f49f8352... If the app is not open-source why would I ever care about what language its written in.

paulcole 5y ago

What major competitors aren’t amazing and aren’t beautiful?

fastball 5y ago
I agree that there are a lot of great looking apps in the space these days, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and we have a lot of users that have come over from other apps in large part because they like how we present things visually!
- paulcole 5y ago
  Yeah, you’re the beholder here. Tell me what you’re beholding.

AitchEmArsey 5y ago

Looks great - so much so that I assumed it would be for Apple devices only, so congratulations and thanks for the Linux support. I'll try it in a bake-off with Obsidian, but the main down-side for me is "notes stored on our servers" - I'd happily sacrifice the collaboration features for a self-hosted option with my data kept as regular text files as much as possible.

fastball 5y ago
Obsidian is great, and if you're looking for affordable, preferably self-hosted, highly customizable Markdown note-taking it is almost certainly the better option. We're trying to be a slightly different kind of app though, where syncing isn't something our users ever have to think about and where collaborating and sharing is as accessible and seamless as possible (among many other goals!) And yes, that means we're probably (on the whole) a worse match for the highly technical/conscientious HN crowd, where the aforementioned selling points of an app like Obsidian are in higher demand. Also a shoutout to Logseq (as mentioned by others in this thread) which is also a great option if you're looking for that kind of app.
- mahathu 5y ago
  Can i export your data as markdown?
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    Unaffiliated but I noticed (not verbatim) "export to pdf or markdown, or use the api to export to other formats or services"
  - heinrichhartman 5y ago
    The documentation states, that you can export "all the cards in the current Noteboard as a ZIP of markdown files" [1] So it looks like exporting is limited to a single "Noteboard". Without bulk export (better sync) features of all documents, this service is a complete non-started for me. [1] https://docs.supernotes.app/en/articles/3068672-exporting-printing#export-as-markdown https://docs.supernotes.app/en/articles/3068672-exporting-pr...

jayflux 5y ago

Looks good, but not being able to access the raw files means tools like foam won’t work https://github.com/foambubble/foam https://github.com/foambubble/foam . There’s a whole community using foam that would appreciate an app like this. To be fair you mention you have your own knowledge map utilities built in so maybe that’s good enough to use directly. I just didn’t notice that looking at your website. Price seems a little high, it’s higher than Evernote which does have some minimal markdown support now and offline editing. This would need more features to justify the cost but that’s just imo. > As soon as you are disconnected from the internet Supernotes will enter a 'read-only' mode. You will still be able to browse, read and search your notes, like so: Is this the same with the app? If I’m out some place with no signal can I write/update a note? It would be frustrating having to wait for your phone to connect first.

mwcampbell 5y ago

I'm always curious about the tech choices in desktop applications that say they're fast, so I downloaded this one and was a bit surprised to find that it's an Electron app. I'm not here to criticize that, though. Instead, I'm curious about what Electron build toolchain the developers are using. Maybe my knowledge of Electron build tools is a bit behind, but this is the first time I've seen an Electron app where, in the Windows version at least, both the x64 and ARM64 versions are packaged in the same installer (inevitably doubling the download size), and the installation is done using NSIS. It looks like there's some kind of updater, but it's not Squirrel. So I'm just curious about whether an open-source tool was used to put all of this together.

samhw 5y ago
I'm pretty sure 'fast' is referring to the runtime performance rather than the download size. (The latter does sound less than ideal, but my hunch is that most people simply do not care about download size, in this day and age.)

samhw 5y ago

Thank you so much for building this. I've been looking for something that's like Notion but without its horrendous performance issues, and ideally with some form of linking between notes (but without Roam's feeling that I might eventually die in a mass murder-suicide to ascend on a comet to the higher realms of note-taking). This is exactly what I was looking for. Please please please carry on developing this. There's a huge market for whoever gets this right - and, for as long as Notion continues on its current architectural path, no one holds the crown.

johnisgood 5y ago

It does look good, but I see no reason to use it over my .md and .org files.

maydup-nem 5y ago

how exciting

maydup-nem 5y ago
wait, what, it isnt'?

rasengan 5y ago

Looks great OP! I made a simple markdown editor as well [1] that lets you edit both with markdown or WYSIWYG and let’s you save files. It keeps your file in local storage as well and is completely open source. [1] https://markdown.doctor https://markdown.doctor

kkarimi 5y ago

It'd be nice to have more import options, from a local directory or git repository

jitl 5y ago

Congrats on the release! The HN convo about web-based apps usually turns into (a) “can I self-host or otherwise own my data”, and (b) “web is slow”. Maybe we can have a more constructive/informative/interesting conversation about how you think about performance! What are some practices & strategies you use to optimize performance? Do you use any automated benchmarking? How do you catch performance regressions? What kinds of metrics help guide your edit latency & load speed goals?

minroot 5y ago

Is the source code public?

maydup-nem 5y ago
how dare you
- minroot 5y ago
  Why?

deleted 5y ago

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shane_b 5y ago

I wish I could use the mobile app before buying to see how it compares to notion. the notion ios app crawls. no doubt i’d be a customer if it’s snappy. i’ve been thinking of building my own alternative for speed.

tobeagram 5y ago
Tobias here (Co-founder). We will eventually publish the mobile apps on the App Stores, but for testing purposes we've made it subscriber-only as a little thanks for their support. Speed is our foremost priority!

bryanph_ 5y ago

Looks great! Some things I really like: * The "seamless" mode for all the views that removes action buttons. Feels kind of like an "exploration view". * New cards created on the home page are automatically added to a "daily" page (but can still be moved to another day). * I like how the sidebar is done, it doesn't get in the way as much as in other apps. * The "thoughts" collection, where notes without links go. The name is perhaps a little confusing though. What I don't really like: * The editor experience. I feel like a rich text experience might have been a better fit for this kind of application. I like markdown as a portable format, but not to write in. But that's pretty personal I guess.

0xferruccio 5y ago

This looks amazing. Love the attention to detail and focus on keyboard shortcuts. Also haven't seen a 3d visualisation of the relationship between my notes before. This is an incredibly impressive product for a team of two

TrevorJ 5y ago

I would love something like this if it easily supported media such as images, etc.

xixixao 5y ago

I’m curious how it stacks up with Bear? Is the main advantage not being Apple-locked?

dcchambers 5y ago

Based on a quick glance, it looks like this goes right at Notion but with Markdown based editing and rendering. I like that a lot. I want to love Notion, but I try to avoid proprietary formats for notes these days. Markdown is a dream IMO, so this looks like a great option for people that want a Notion-like experience but with a data preservation and export-friendly file format.

confutio 5y ago
AFAIK you do write Notion pages in Markdown and can export your whole workspace as markdown files.

thefuzz 5y ago

Sorry to highjack this thread, but I've been looking for an open-source alternative that can edit .md files, and sync them to a Github repo. I know my IDE can do this - but just wondered if a writing-specific app existed that was also open source? (if it's relevant: its for private thoughts that I'd like to just keep in a Github repo because its 1. Free and 2. Not going away anytime soon)

rrrrrrrrrrrrr 5y ago
You can use obsidian.md with a plug-in for that.
- lucas_ 5y ago
  > I've been looking for an open-source alternative that can edit .md files, and sync them to a Github repo. Obsidian is not open-source tho.
  - jerrygoyal 5y ago
    logseq is open-source
edtechdev 5y ago
Logseq is free and open source https://logseq.com/ https://logseq.com/ You have to sync yourself though (for now). You can also publish to github pages. My only issues are: they are focusing more on the desktop and (now) mobile apps, instead of the web app. You can't quickly share items to the app or web version to quickly save links, etc. They did have github integration built into the web version but are abandoning that to work on their own paid sync solution that isn't out yet. But you can manually sync the files as I mentioned. For now I'm mainly sticking with a wiki but keeping an eye on developments to logseq and similar open source apps like Athens Research, Bangle, etc. See this twitter list of different knowledge management tools: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1396562498002825240 https://twitter.com/i/lists/1396562498002825240
GordonS 5y ago
On mobile I use GitJournal for this - it's an excellent app which I'm really happy with. On desktop, I just use VS Code.

jgstyle 5y ago

The design reminded me very much of Craft, which im using currently → What are the advantages of using a card base note system over a regular "file"based one? Obviously, I can see the "visual" difference, but in terms of actual usage, where's the difference?

theodorejb 5y ago

From the features page: > On Supernotes your data is always encrypted in transit (forced SSL) and encrypted at rest (AES-256). Our team will never read or access your note content, unless we have received your express permission during a customer support interaction. Sorry, but the fact that you can read it makes this a no-go for me. Unless a note-taking solution offers end-to-end encryption, I don't consider it a safe place for storing private information.

porcc 5y ago
presumably if you give them permission it includes sending them the content of the note, but if so the wording should change to say that explicitly
fastball 5y ago
Yep, to be explicit: Supernotes is not currently E2EE. It is something we'd certainly like to add in the future, but up until now our priority has been on building out UX and sharing features, which are somewhat at odds with E2EE (at least when it comes to what a 2-man team can reasonably accomplish). There is a delicate balance we want to strike here, as part of the goal of Supernotes is to give users peace of mind so that they don't need to worry about what happens if they lose their laptop and didn't have it backed up. We've been toying with some ideas that would allow more technical users to take matters into their own hands and take on the responsibility of managing their private keys themselves, but that isn't quite ready yet.
reitanqild 5y ago
Sorry, this is the day when I decided to start downvoting people who demand E2E-encryption from things that obviously don't need it. At this point I am just fed up, but to be constructive: - E2E-encryption is a seriously nice property. If it was free and simple we should use it everywhere. - Picking on nice things that absolutely doesn't need E2E-encryption however is just counterproductive, and most people who do so (I haven't studied you in particular) seems to have no clue about when and why it is useful. -Let me give some ideas: there seems to be lots of people who claim to need E2E-encryption but cannot take basic security precautions like separating work/personal, avoid linking their social media profile etc in their profile, etc etc etc. - Basically: if someone isn't wearing a cap, using tails, paying in cash, updating ones notes via a directed antenna connected to a distant open network - and if they haven't considered the pros and cons of connecting to the same network every time (what if "they" are onto one and are right now using a directional antenna to pinpoint ones direction) vs different ones (reduces that risk but simplifies triangulation) - and haven't considered their cover story for why they were out biking without a phone but with a laptop and a directional antenna, or considered cash (less traceable) or card (don't stand out) - ... then there is a fair chance they don't actually need E2E-encryption - and if they share the stuff they are hoarding, the chance is even bigger. - That said: again, E2E-encryption is a seriously nice property that simplifies a number of other problems. I'll pay premium for it even if I don't need it. But I don't need it for diary, not even for notes about customer systems. And as I write this I can almost hear glass shattering all around me. I'm logged in through corporate WiFi and I don't care ;-) Edit: let me also add that 1.) most people have now clue about how to verify E2E-encryption 2.) for web applications it can trivially be circumvented by anyone who can single handedly push code to prod and you won't know before much later 3.) it can be done selectively against one user and on most users it will leave no trace at all (a patched minified script with no caching that sends encryption keys back isn't hard at all, is it?)

andrewshadura 5y ago

No thanks, there's Joplin for an all-in-one solution, or Synching + Mark Text or any other markdown editor, completely free and open source.

throwoutway 5y ago

Looks great, and I wish you luck, but I'd rather pay for a binary+license for major updates, not pay monthly for a lock-in subscription. That, or a large one-time lifetime license like Plex

deleted 5y ago
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nbzso 5y ago

In recent years, I created a habit of limiting sharing of data. I have a local backups and encrypted backups on my server. Cloud sharing is for limited use-cases with unavoidable scenarios. For the rest, after fighting with Emacs Org-mode I settled to plain markdown with Obsidian.

doteka 5y ago

Not to take a dump on this product in particular but at this point I feel like there are more note-taking apps out there than people willing to pay for a note taking app. Why does everybody and their dog think that competing with the thing that comes with all my devices for free (Apple Notes, Google Keep) is a great business opportunity? I can’t seem to wrap my mind around this.

reidjs 5y ago
Neither of those apps do markdown, which I NEED, so I pay for a markdown note app
- aikinai 5y ago
  What is the advantage of Markdown over rich text without extra characters?
  - flutetornado 5y ago
    For a lot of things such as tables, lists, adding links, etc, markdown allows you to do it "inline" while typing, instead of forcing out of band operations.
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Markdown files can be backed up offline, version controlled with Git, grepped (in-file text search) and finded (search for filenames), parsed with awk perl or sed (yes, sorry, I've done that more often than I like to admit), edited with VIM (I live in VIM), and many other advantages.
  - reidjs 5y ago
    In addition to what the other posters mentioned, markdown/plaintext is easier to work with for automation tasks. For example I schedule tweets through markdown files https://github.com/reidjs/markdown-tweet-scheduler https://github.com/reidjs/markdown-tweet-scheduler
    - 5y ago

dotancohen 5y ago

I'm happily syncing org-mode with git, so I might not be your target market, but I consider every new note-taking app as I don't think that anyone's got it perfect yet. My constructive feedback is solely the cost. I get that the servers are expensive and I actually do prefer to pay rather than worry that the lights of my note-taking app might go out some day. But $8 per month is far too steep. For $1 per month I'd sign up and feel like I'm getting a bargain, and tell my friends. For $2 per month I'd seriously consider signing up but it's not a given. Any more than that, and I can't really consider the app.

TameAntelope 5y ago

The absolute best part of HN for me, personally, is seeing people complete/ship their projects. I am always so impressed by folks who take something in their head and turn it into a usable, shippable thing. Very good work!

instaheat 5y ago

Hi there, I just wanted to let you know that the email confirmation link I received indicates my link has expired when it has been no more than a few minutes.

angryasian 5y ago

I didn't see how to backup and store files locally. Not owning my own notes would be the biggest concern for me. If I were to ever quit your service I want to still be able to keep my notes and have them be usable in obsidian as an example

huydotnet 5y ago

Kudos to Supernotes, it was very nice to include the list of alternatives/competitors on your product's page! https://supernotes.app/alternatives/ https://supernotes.app/alternatives/

goodpoint 5y ago

Why markdown when there are much better formats like AsciiDoc?

xanaxagoras 5y ago

Looks nice. Can't purchase the product for money. Not E2EE, can't self-host. Pass.

krono 5y ago

I really like all these gentle constraints. Total freedom note apps are no match for my ADHD brain, but this one might just stand a chance :)

oweiler 5y ago

First creating an account for testing it out is a no-go for me.

maydup-nem 5y ago
don't bother. they are downvoting anybody who still has a shred of self-respect.

watmough 5y ago

Well snap. I was thinking about dipping my toe in this space. If anyone wants to give me $6 Million, with 100% return in the event of my death, I'm all ears.

coreyog 5y ago

Created an account, "We've given you 40 cards, you can get up to 20 more cards by inviting your...", deleted account.

strontian 5y ago

Your website has cute style! Curious what it’s made with

aiisjustanif 5y ago

What advantages does the have over Joplin? Joplin is free and has a lot of these features.

dankwizard 5y ago

Are there any screenshot previews?

tobeagram 5y ago
Even better, we have a video preview of each feature that you can flick between using the left and right arrow keys – https://supernotes.app/features/notecards https://supernotes.app/features/notecards

gregwebs 5y ago

This looks a lot like Simplenote [1] at its core but adding on additional features that make it super instead of simple :) A big difference between the two though is that Simplenote is free whereas Supernotes is $6/month (free for < 40 notes). I think you could upsell Simplenote users if you had an import/export and a plan that was cheaper (perhaps a 50% discount if you pay for a whole year up front). [1] https://simplenote.com/ https://simplenote.com/

ALittleLight 5y ago

On the linked homepage I see "No ads. No trials. All our features are free!" But on the pricing page I see it costs money for 40+ cards. I'd consider unlimited cards a feature which makes the text on the homepage misleading (or just wrong). I do like the concept of cards being children of other cards. That fits how I think about things. In obsidian I use folders and links, but I'd really like the folders to have some top level text associated with them. I also think the price is way too high compared to free alternatives.

ipiz0618 5y ago

I've always wondered how people build such clean interface. One of the best UIs I've seen in a while. Nice work!