Overview

Blinko is an open-source, self-hosted note app built for capturing fleeting thoughts the moment they arrive. Notes are written as plain text with Markdown support, stored in your own PostgreSQL database, and organised with tags and multi-level tag paths, so a quick jot becomes a searchable personal knowledge base rather than another lost draft. Everything runs inside your own deployment: no account with a third party, no notes leaving the device.

Key Features

• AI note retrieval — natural-language search over your notes with retrieval-augmented generation, so you can ask questions instead of guessing tag names.
• Instant capture — a single editor box for plain text and Markdown, with attachments, images and voice input, saved the moment you hit send.
• Multi-level tags — the / shortcut builds hierarchical tag paths such as #homelab/docker to keep related notes together.
• Self-hosted and private — notes live in your own PostgreSQL database and uploads volume; nothing is sent to a vendor.
• Companion clients — desktop apps built with Tauri for macOS, Windows and Linux, plus an Android share target for capturing from the phone.
• Sharing and publishing — share individual notes by link, follow exposed notes through RSS, and review your week with a daily review view.
• Plugins and integrations — a plugin ecosystem, webhooks, scheduled tasks, SSO and S3-compatible object storage for attachments.

Why Use Blinko

Most note apps make you choose between speed and structure. Blinko keeps the capture step to one box and a send button, then adds the structure afterwards through tags, AI search and review views. Because the whole stack is a Docker container plus PostgreSQL, it fits a homelab alongside the rest of your services and stays usable offline from the desktop clients.

Use Cases

• Capture ideas from a phone share sheet and find them again later with natural-language search.
• Keep meeting notes and task lists next to project tags without a separate wiki to maintain.
• Publish selected notes as an RSS feed or shared link for a small team.
• Store personal notes on hardware you control, with PostgreSQL backups you can actually restore.

Licence

Blinko is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. The application source, the Docker image and the companion clients are all published under GPL-3.0.

Alternatives

• Memos — comparable self-hosted, single-binary note app with Markdown and tags.
• Flatnotes — self-hosted Markdown notes stored as plain files rather than a database.