A real Markdown editor
Live preview, a slash menu, tables with inline editing, callouts, wiki links, math & Mermaid, block drag handles, print & PDF export.
Local-first · Markdown · Yours
Your notes are just files.
Plainva makes them feel like an app.
A local-first Markdown editor that opens your existing Obsidian vaults, adds Notion-style databases over plain notes, and syncs through storage you already own — and never locks you in.
Windows · macOS · Linux No account No telemetry AGPL-3.0
# Weekly Review
✓ Ship the landing page
☐ Draft the NLnet milestones
Next up in [[Q3 Roadmap]] — the encrypted sync** module.
Opens your Obsidian vault — and never changes it behind your back. Any upgrade — typed notes, databases — is opt-in. Your notes stay plain Markdown that opens anywhere: in Obsidian, in any text or Markdown editor, today and in ten years.
What you get
A modern app over plain files — nothing hidden, nothing owned by us.
Databases over plain notes
Tables, boards, calendars, galleries, timelines and a graph — with relations and computed reverse columns. The data is your notes.
See how it all connects
A context graph beside every note, plus a semantic-zoom vault map with cleanup tools for orphans, broken links and unlinked mentions.
Through your storage
WebDAV/Nextcloud, S3-compatible, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox. Offline queue, 3-way merge, visual conflict resolver. Nothing leaves your storage.
Every write, recoverable
Automatic per-file snapshots — browse, diff and restore any version, undelete files, and daily ZIP backups by default.
Fast on large vaults
SQLite/FTS5 full-text search as you type, incremental indexing, and a measured performance budget — tens of thousands of notes stay snappy.
The data is your notes
Boards, tables and relations — stored as plain Markdown.
A .base file is a view over your notes' frontmatter. Drag a card and Plainva writes a single field back into a note — no database, no export, no lock-in. Open the same folder in Obsidian and your notes are just notes.
Tasks.base Board
To do 2
Draft NLnet milestonesdue Aug 1 · [[NLnet]]
Record screenshotsdue Jul 20
Doing 1
Build the websitefocus
Done 1
Ship the betaJul 6
The promise
No account. No telemetry. No middleman.
Plainva runs on your machine and talks only to the storage you choose. There is no Plainva server between you and your notes — because there is no Plainva account to begin with.
- Your files stay put. Nothing is uploaded anywhere except the cloud you connect.
- Credentials in the OS keychain. Not in a config file, not on a server.
- Plain Markdown, forever. If Plainva vanished tomorrow, every note still opens.
Bring your own cloud
Sync through storage you already pay for.
WebDAV and S3 work out of the box; OneDrive and Dropbox connect with a single sign-in. Google Drive works too, with a one-time app setup of your own.
WebDAV / Nextcloud S3 · R2 · MinIO · B2 Google Drive OneDrive Dropbox
12 themes · 10 languages
no lock-in · no phone-home On the roadmap
Plainva is coming to your phone.
The desktop app is here today. Native apps for iOS and Android are in the works — the same plain-Markdown vaults, synced through the storage you already use. Want a heads-up when the mobile beta opens?
You're on the list — we'll email you once, when mobile is ready.
One email, only about the mobile app. No newsletter, no sharing.
Keep it independent
Plainva is funded by people, not investors.
No VC, no growth traps — grants and one-time supporters keep it alive and honest. Any amount helps; none of it buys your data.
Recurring via GitHub Sponsors or Liberapay, or a one-time thank-you on Ko-fi — no account needed. All three are fee-friendly, so nearly everything reaches the project.
Building something commercial on Plainva? Commercial licensing →
Get Plainva
It's a small download and your vault opens in seconds.
Free and open source. In-app updates are signed, and you can turn them off. Prefer to build it yourself? The whole thing is on GitHub.
Beta · used daily on real vaults · 1,500+ tests · keep backups of irreplaceable data.