Show HN: I made a Task Manager that's not going away

1 NoelDeMartin 0 6/23/2025, 3:31:30 PM focus.noeldemartin.com ↗
Yes, I know there are already hundreds of task managers out there. Years ago, I used to switch mine every few months, but I always ended up going back to Wunderlist (anyone remember that?). That is, until Microsoft bought it and decided to kill it off.

Since then, I hadn't been able to find a task manager I particularly liked. And to be honest, I had grown tired of relying on apps that can be bought and killed. So I decided to start working on my own, and that's how I came up with Focus. On the surface, it's very similar to Wunderlist, and not even that good looking (keep in mind that this is a one-person side-project). But there are a couple of things that make it different.

First of all, it's open source, so it can't really be bought or killed. It also relies on a couple of technologies that make it very resilient. It uses Solid, a protocol for decentralized storage that lets you choose where your data will live (I won't even have access to it!). This also removes any sort of vendor lock-in, and you can reuse the data with other apps simultaneously (this is called interoperability). Finally, it's local-first. That means that you don't even need to create an account, and it will work without an internet connection.

I wish all the apps were built with a similar philosophy, and they couldn't be killed at the whims of their owners. Anyways, let me know what you think of this!

PS: No, it's not a vibe-coded app :). I started working on this in 2018 and over the last 1~2 years I've rewritten it from scratch.

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