Have you ever tried countless note-taking apps and still haven't found one you truly love? Notion is powerful, but your data isn't in your hands. Typora is lightweight, but its features are limited. Obsidian is great, but it's closed-source and doesn't allow deep customization. What if I told you there's a note app that's free, open-source, with data fully stored offline on your local drive, offering most of Obsidian's features with the highest level of customization for your favorite styles, supporting quick plugin imports, with no annoying update prompts ever, and only 16MB after installation — would you want to try it?
Today I'm introducing the open-source note app I recently built with vibe coding: MindZJ. So what can MindZJ actually do? First, it solves the data security problem — your notes are just .md files on your local disk, not bound to or synced with any cloud service. Data stays on your computer — open it and use it, fully local.
MindZJ's editor has three modes: live preview, source code, and pure reading mode. Press Ctrl E to switch between editing and reading modes. It supports bi-directional linking via double brackets (Wiki Links) for free navigation across notes. Full-text search is powered by Rust's tantivy engine — blazingly fast, no matter how many notes you have. Math formulas use KaTeX, diagrams use Mermaid, code highlighting uses Shiki. Paste images directly and they're auto-saved to your vault. A built-in screenshot editor lets you capture fullscreen with Alt G — all shortcuts are customizable. Every edit auto-creates a local snapshot, so you can roll back anytime. Files are written atomically — even a power outage won't lose your data.
The plugin system runs inside a WebWorker sandbox, safer than most note apps' plugin mechanisms, supporting custom plugin imports, and shipping with a mind-map plugin and screenshot editor out of the box. Press Ctrl P for the command palette — split view, multi-tab, drag-to-reorder. Your workspace, your rules. What's most unique: MindZJ comes with a standalone CLI tool. Create notes, search content, and manage your vault from the terminal — perfect for scripts and AI workflows. It natively supports 6 languages: Chinese, English, Japanese, French, German, and Spanish.
A quick word on MindZJ's tech stack. The core is built on Tauri 2.0 plus Rust. MindZJ is only 16MB installed — an order of magnitude lighter than Electron's hundreds of MB. The frontend is SolidJS, the editor is CodeMirror 6, and the search engine is tantivy. For AI, it already supports Ollama, Claude, and OpenAI — more AI-native features are on the way. The project fully covers Windows, macOS, and Linux, with mobile support on the roadmap.
So that's MindZJ — not a concept demo, but a tool I use every single day. Next up: a richer plugin ecosystem, AI workflows, a mobile experience, and more local knowledge management features. If you're looking for a truly open-source, free, offline-first note-taking app, give MindZJ a try — the link is in the video description. I'd love to hear your thoughts — please share your feedback in the comments or live chat. If this project helps you, please give the repo a Star to support it.
github.com/zjok/mindzj