Andrew
@ra3orbladez

I build Brainstorm, a local-first, end-to-end encrypted knowledge workspace. It's shaped like a small OS: a shell that hosts sandboxed apps — Notes, Tasks, Database, Whiteboard, Graph — that all read and write the same entities on your disk.

• Local-first. SQLite + Yjs CRDTs on your machine. Works with the Wi-Fi off. Sync is something you turn on, not something you're locked into.
• End-to-end encrypted. Your master key never leaves your machine. I can't read your notes — that's the architecture, not a setting.
• No lock-in. It imports Notion and Obsidian vaults and exports back to standard formats. "You can leave" is a feature.
• No account. The product is whole without one.

The beta is free, on macOS, Windows and Linux, and the design docs are public: github.com/brainstorm-os/shell.

Why donations. There's no VC money and no data to monetize — the encryption makes sure of that. But shipping a desktop app has real recurring costs: Apple notarization, a Windows code-signing certificate, sync server hosting, and the time to keep fixing bugs. Donations cover those costs and keep the local, private core free for everyone.

It's a beta, honestly: multi-device sync is the youngest part, and there's no mobile app yet. If "my notes, on my disk, that I can still open in ten years" is the thing you want, you're who this is for.