Open source
Open source, and yours to run
Allied Note is being built to be forked and self-hosted. Here is what is decided, what is not, and what the server will be able to see.
License: to be announced
Allied Note will be open source. The license has not been chosen, and we are taking legal advice before we choose, because a license is hard to change once other people have contributed.
Today the code is all rights reserved and the repository is private. There is no license file. The plan is to publish the repository, with its license, at launch.
Self-hosting Planned
The goal is one command, docker compose up, that starts the database, the API,
the sync server, the background worker and the web app on your own machine. Self-hosting
will be free.
Today that compose file starts a database and two placeholder pages. It is a scaffold, not something to deploy.
Your notes stay portable Planned
- Markdown in, Markdown out. The editor is being designed so that every kind of block exports to Markdown. If a block cannot be exported, it does not ship.
- Export is never paid. Export of a page or a whole notebook will be in every plan, including the free one.
- No cap on notes. We will never limit how many notes you can keep.
- Templates you can change. Planner pages will be generated from Markdown templates kept in the repository, so a fork can change them.
Privacy and encryption
Version 1 will not have end-to-end encryption. The server will be able to read the content of your notes.
Notes will be encrypted in transit and at rest. But search runs on the server, and Nabu reads pages on the server, and both need the text. End-to-end encryption would break both, so version 1 does not offer it.
Planned for a later version: a private mode you can turn on per notebook, with keys held on your devices. In a private notebook, search would run only on your device and Nabu would have no access.
If you need the server operator to be unable to read your notes, the options will be to self-host, so that you are the operator, or to wait for private mode.
Pricing: not set
A free plan, low-cost paid plans and free self-hosting are planned. We have not set any price, and will not publish one until it is backed by real running costs.
Planned stack
These are the current architecture decisions. Some are still open, and the status page lists those.
- TypeScript throughout, in one repository
- Postgres for storage and full-text search
- Page bodies as local-first documents that sync and merge offline edits
- One web codebase, wrapped for desktop and mobile
- Every row tied to a workspace, with row-level security from the first database migration