Many Notes is a self-hosted, browser-based Markdown note-taking application built around simplicity. It keeps a database to power its features, but every note is also stored as a plain Markdown file in the filesystem, inside vaults that you choose — so your notes stay portable, readable by any other tool and easy to back up. It is a small PHP application you run with Docker on your own server and reach through the browser, or install as a PWA.

Writing and organisation

• A Markdown editor with a formatting toolbar, live preview and automatic saving, so there is no save button to forget.
• Vaults act as storage containers: keep every note in one vault, or split them by subject.
• A tree view explorer with context-menu actions, plus templates that keep new notes in a consistent shape.
• Wiki-style links, backlinks and tags to connect related notes; an expandable metadata pane shows what links to the note you are reading.
• Fast, typo-tolerant full-text search backed by Typesense.
• Export individual notes to PDF, and import or export whole vaults for backup and migration.

Users and collaboration

• Multiple users, with authentication in front of your files.
• OpenID Connect and OAuth support, so you can sign in with an existing identity provider.
• Invite other users into a vault and work on the same notes; changes are broadcast live to everyone viewing them.
• A starter vault ships with the application, which is handy for seeing how notes, folders and templates fit together.

Deployment and requirements

• Official Docker image (brufdev/many-notes), built on PHP 8.4. SQLite is the default database, with documented setups for a different database and for bind mounts if you want shared paths on the host.
• Upstream recommends running it behind a reverse proxy that serves the application over HTTPS — that is also what unlocks PWA support and copying from code blocks.
• Light and dark themes are selected automatically from the system setting, and the interface checks for new versions itself.
• MIT licensed and actively maintained.

Related tools

• SilverBullet — plain-Markdown knowledge base with scripting, also self-hosted.
• Memos — lightweight self-hosted note capture, closer to a timeline than a vault.
• Flatnotes — minimal file-backed Markdown notes with no database in the way.
• Joplin — cross-platform notes with sync and end-to-end encryption, if you want a desktop client too.