Show HN: Octarine – a fast, lightweight, opinionated Markdown notes app

Hey HN! I’ve been building [Octarine](https://octarine.app/) for a little over 2 years. It started because I wanted a note-taking app that was:

- Lightweight (< 30MB, fast to launch, no Electron bloat).

- Opinionated (good defaults, clean UI, not a plugin bazaar).

- Yours (all plain Markdown, nothing proprietary).

---

- Command bar (Cmd/Ctrl+K) to navigate and run commands quickly.

- WYSIWYG editor (rich text without live preview jumping).

- Git sync built-in — backups to GitHub/GitLab, no plugins.

- Natural language dates (“yesterday”, “last week”).

- Multiple workspaces, templates, tags, graph view.

- Backup anywhere — iCloud, Dropbox, Syncthing.

- Tabs & Panes — split and rearrange notes/graphs like a code editor.

*Pro Features*

- BYOK for over 9 AI providers including OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Gemini and more!

- Ask Octarine — chat with your notes (RAG, embeddings done on-device).

- Writing Assistant — Sidebar assistant to help rewrite, improve or create.

- Focus Mode — distraction-free, sentence spotlight.

- Customisation — 30+ fresh themes, different paper types.

- Locked Notes — Disallow a note from editing.

- Folder Customisations — Add icons/colors to folders, have them manage their own unique sorting.

*FAQ*

- Free plan gets updates forever; some features are Pro.

- Pro is a one-time license (no yearly “updates tax”).

- Over 130+ releases shipped.

- iOS app is in development.

- Overlaps with Obsidian, but follows different methodologies about having less but baked in features, over an extensible plugin system (each work for different users)

---

Try it: [octarine.app](http://octarine.app)

Changelog: [octarine.app/changelog](https://octarine.app/changelog)

Documentation: [docs.octarine.app](https://docs.octarine.app)

I’d love your feedback - what works, what feels off, what’s missing? Always open to ideas (and criticism).