Local-first note apps: what's actually on your disk

“Local-first” started as a precise idea and became a marketing word. The precise idea is worth keeping: the primary copy of your data lives on your device, the network is optional, and your notes outlive every company decision — the framing laid out by Martin Kleppmann and his Ink & Switch co-authors in their 2019 essay Local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud. The marketing word gets applied to anything with a cache.

So this page sorts by a blunter test: close the app and look at your disk. What’s there? For some apps, a folder of Markdown files any program can open. For others, a database — honest and local, but readable only through the app. For a third group, an encrypted blob or a sync cache that was never really yours. All three groups contain good software. They are not the same bet.

Full disclosure where it’s due: Acres, in the plain-files group, is our app — this site belongs to it. Judge that entry with the appropriate suspicion; every claim about the others cites the vendor’s own documentation.

What does local-first actually mean?

The Ink & Switch essay defined it by outcomes, and they still make the best checklist: work is instant because there’s no server round-trip; everything functions offline; and — the one this page cares about — “you own your data, in spite of the cloud.” A local cache doesn’t get you there, because a cache serves the server. Local-first means the copy on your machine is the real one.

Notice what the definition doesn’t require: plain text files, open source, or even avoiding sync services. Those are separate choices. But they stack — and how each app stacks them is the whole story below.

Plain files: notes any program can open

Obsidian is the default answer in 2026, and deservedly. Notes are Markdown files in a vault — in Obsidian’s own words, “a folder on your local file system” — the app is free including commercial use, and it runs on every desktop and mobile platform. The optional services are cheap and end-to-end encrypted: Sync at $4 a month billed annually. Its canvas is a side feature rather than the center; if that’s the part you care about, we compared exactly that in Acres vs Obsidian Canvas.

iA Writer is the purist’s tool: plain text files, Markdown syntax, one screen, one typeface. It’s also the rare app still sold the old way — a one-time $49.99 on Mac, $29.99 on Windows, $49.99 on iPhone and iPad (Android, oddly, is subscription-only via Google Play). No vault concept, no linking machinery — just files in folders you manage, which for many writers is precisely the appeal.

Zettlr is the academic’s pick: free, GPL-licensed, Markdown files that stay on your computer, with first-class Zettelkasten support and citation tooling on Windows, Mac, and Linux. SilverBullet is the tinkerer’s: an MIT-licensed personal wiki you self-host as a single binary or Docker container, storing everything as Markdown pages on your own server, scriptable with Lua. Neither will hold your hand; both respect your disk completely.

Acres — ours — is what happens when plain files meet an infinite canvas. Every card is a CommonMark Markdown file; boards are readable, pretty-printed JSON; all of it lives in a folder you pick, on macOS and Windows, a one-time purchase with no account. The files sync any way files sync, and an optional end-to-end encrypted sync service exists for when you’d rather not run that yourself. The distinctive part is agent access: a bundled MCP server with 29 tools, a CLI, and a supervision ledger that records every AI edit with word-level diffs and revert — a combination nothing else in this table offers, because plain files are only half of agent-safety; the other half is knowing what the agent did (the full story). Limits, honestly: no mobile, web, or Linux, no collaboration, no plugins, and it’s the youngest app on this page. If spatial thinking isn’t your mode, pick Obsidian and don’t look back; if it is, the canvas roundup shows where Acres sits among its own kind.

Local database, honest exports

These apps keep everything on your device — local-first by the essay’s definition — but in a database only they can read. That’s not a scandal; it’s a trade. Databases enable things files struggle with (block-level structure, instant queries, encryption at rest). The cost is that “your data” now means “your ability to export.”

Logseq made this trade publicly. The 2.0 “DB version,” in beta since July 2026, moved notes from Markdown files into a local SQLite database; the old file-based app lives on as “Logseq OG” in maintenance mode — no forced migration, but no new features either. Markdown export exists and its docs are honest that it “cannot capture all data in a graph”; a “Markdown Mirror” — a plain-Markdown projection of the graph to disk — is still in development. Logseq remains free, open source, and beloved by outliners. But if plain files were why you chose it, the ground moved — we wrote up what that means in Acres vs Logseq.

Joplin never pretended otherwise: its architecture docs state plainly that all apps use a local SQLite database. Around that sits the most complete package in open source — free on five platforms plus a terminal app, end-to-end encrypted sync through Joplin Cloud (from €2.40 a month billed annually) or your own Dropbox, OneDrive, or WebDAV, and a lossless JEX export alongside Markdown. If “open source, encrypted, runs everywhere” is your spec, Joplin is the answer.

Bear is the Apple aesthete’s version: notes in a local SQLite database, Markdown export even on the free tier, and sync exclusively through iCloud — by deliberate choice. Pro is $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. Within its fence it’s lovely; the fence is Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple’s cloud.

Anytype is the most ambitious build on this list: objects in an encrypted local store, synced through its CRDT-based network, free with paid tiers at $4, $8, and $16 a month for network storage. Two clarifications its marketing won’t volunteer: files are stored “in encrypted fragments, so they can’t be accessed outside of Anytype” — maximal privacy, minimal file-ownership — and the app’s license is source-available, not open source (the sync protocol itself is MIT). Markdown export exists, desktop only.

Encrypted cloud is not the same thing

Notesnook deserves a fair sentence rather than a dismissal: it’s open source, keeps an encrypted SQLite database on your device, works offline, and syncs end-to-end encrypted — closer to local-first than almost any cloud app. But the design centers on its sync service, and your notes are reachable only through Notesnook: encrypted at rest with a key in the platform keystore, not files you hold. Fine as a private notes app; different from ownership. (Its listed prices vary by region, so check the pricing page yourself.)

And Notion, since everyone asks: not local-first. Its 2025 offline mode is a well-built cache — per-page opt-in, recent pages auto-downloaded on paid plans, databases limited to the first 50 rows of a view — and Notion’s own engineering write-up is clear that the server remains the source of truth. That’s a cloud app that degrades gracefully, which is worth having and isn’t this page’s subject.

Where AI agents change the math

A quiet consequence of the files-versus-database split: AI agents can simply read files. Point Claude Code or any MCP-speaking tool at an Obsidian vault, an iA Writer folder, or an Acres vault and it can work with your actual notes — no API, no integration, no permission from the vendor. Database apps need official surfaces, and most haven’t built them. If agents are part of how you work now, this one column of the table might outweigh the rest; Acres for AI agents covers what safe agent access to notes looks like in practice.

How do you choose?

Decide what you want to be true in ten years, because that’s the timescale note apps live on. If the answer is “my notes open in whatever software exists then” — plain files, and your shortlist is Obsidian, iA Writer, Zettlr, SilverBullet, or Acres, sorted by how you think — and if you think spatially, Acres is the only canvas on that list. If it’s “everything encrypted and synced, and I trust the export” — Joplin and Anytype are the serious options, Bear if your world is Apple. If you catch yourself not caring where the notes live, close this page and use whatever your team uses; local-first is a conviction before it’s a feature list.

Prices and storage claims were verified against each vendor’s own pages on 2026-08-19 — sources below, as always.