blinko

Blinko is a personal note-taking application you run on your own server, built for people who want to capture quick thoughts or ideas without those notes being stored on someone else's platform. Because you host it yourself, your data stays under your control and is not shared with any third-party service.

The app centers on a card-style interface where notes can be written in Markdown, a simple text formatting system that lets you add headings, bold text, and lists without needing a visual editor. One of its main features is AI-assisted search: rather than typing exact keywords, you can ask questions in plain language and Blinko will pull up relevant notes using a technique called RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), which matches your query against the content of your notes.

Blinko runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, and Android. It can be installed on a server in seconds using Docker, with a single command that handles the setup automatically. There is also a one-click deployment option through a hosted service called PikaPods for people who want self-hosting without managing the server infrastructure themselves.

The project is open source and accepts community contributions. It uses a PostgreSQL database for storage and is built with Next.js and React on the frontend, though those technical details are mostly invisible to end users. The application is free to use; the developers accept optional financial support through Ko-fi and a Chinese crowdfunding platform, and a portion of PikaPods deployment fees goes back to the project.