VNote

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 827 words

There is nothing to host. VNote is a native desktop application (Qt and C++, about 13,000 GitHub stars) that stores every note as a plain Markdown file in a folder you choose, and the self-hosting question is only ever "how do I get that folder onto my other machines". The good news is that this is a solved problem with tools you probably already run. The bad news is that if you wanted a web UI, a phone app or sharing with anyone else, VNote is the wrong pick and the notes category has better ones.

A notebook is a folder, and that is the whole product

Point VNote at a directory and it becomes a notebook. Subfolders are subfolders, notes are .md files, attachments and images sit next to them, and a small hidden metadata folder inside the notebook root holds VNote's index, tags and per-note settings. Delete VNote tomorrow and every note is still readable in any editor, greppable from a shell and trivially converted to anything else. This is the property that matters more than any feature. Joplin keeps notes in a SQLite database and exports on demand; Trilium is database-first with a web UI; VNote is file-first with no server at all. Choose it for that reason or not at all.

The editor is where it earns the "for programmers" tagline: syntax highlighting inside fenced code blocks, a Vim editing mode that covers the motions and operators people actually use rather than a token subset, a live preview pane, and rendering for Mermaid, PlantUML, Graphviz and Flowchart.js diagrams plus MathJax for equations. PlantUML and Graphviz rendering call out to those tools, so install them locally if you want those diagrams to show.

Sync is your job, and Syncthing does it well

Because notes are files, Syncthing is the natural pairing. One shared folder, every device that runs VNote is a peer, and it stays inside your network if you want it to. Three settings matter: turn on file versioning ("Staggered" with a 30-day retention is my default) so a bad merge or an accidental delete is reversible; ignore VNote's temp and backup files with a .stignore line; and never edit the same note on two machines at the same time. Syncthing resolves conflicts by keeping both copies as .sync-conflict files, which is honest but tedious to clean up.

If you already run Nextcloud, its desktop client does the same job with a web fallback for reading notes on a phone; Git works too, and is what a subset of developers prefer because a commit log of your notes is a diary you did not have to keep. Any of the three is fine. The mistake is Dropbox-style cloud sync with a paid tier and a company reading your notes, which is the thing self-hosting the folder was supposed to avoid.

Where it beats the alternatives, and where it loses

Speed. VNote opens in under a second and a notebook of 5,000 notes searches instantly, because it is native code reading local files, not an Electron app talking to a service. It has proper folder hierarchy, which Joplin fakes and Trilium replaces with a tree. And it costs nothing, on an MIT licence, with builds for Windows, macOS and Linux.

It loses on everything that needs a server: no phone app, no browser access, no sharing a note with a colleague by link, no collaborative editing, no web clipper. It also loses on ecosystem; the plugin scene that surrounds Obsidian and Logseq does not exist here, so if your workflow depends on a daily-notes plugin or a Kanban view, you will be writing it yourself. And the project is largely one developer's work with a slower release cadence than the big names, which for a file-based app is far less alarming than it would be for a service, because your files do not care whether the editor is maintained.

What it is not

VNote is not a knowledge base, not a task manager and not a team tool. It is a Markdown editor with a notebook model good enough that you never think about it. Judge it against Logseq or a plain editor pointed at a folder, not against Notion.

What I'd do

If you live in a terminal, want Vim keys, and are content with notes on desktops only: VNote, one notebook folder, Syncthing with 30-day versioning between your machines, and a nightly restic backup of the folder, because sync is not backup. If you need your notes on a phone even occasionally, skip it and take Joplin with its server, or Trilium, and accept the slightly heavier stack. The people VNote suits are exactly the people who will read "plain files, no server" and feel relief; if that was not you, the answer was already no.