Coda
Docs, tables, and apps combined into one collaborative workspace
Blinko
AI-powered self-hosted note-taking for capturing fleeting thoughts
Blinko is a self-hosted, AI-enhanced card note-taking tool that helps you instantly capture, organize, and retrieve fleeting ideas with natural language search and complete data ownership.
Overview
Capture Ideas at the Speed of Thought
Blinko is designed for individuals who need to quickly capture and organize fleeting thoughts without losing creative momentum. Built with privacy-first principles, this self-hosted note-taking platform ensures you maintain complete control over your data while leveraging AI capabilities to enhance retrieval and organization.
AI-Powered Retrieval & Multi-Platform Support
The platform features advanced RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) technology that enables natural language queries to find notes effortlessly. Notes are stored as plain text with full Markdown support for quick formatting and seamless sharing. Built on Tauri, Blinko delivers a lightweight architecture with native support across macOS, Windows, Android, and Linux. The Windows desktop version includes offline voice recognition powered by Whisper, with both CPU and GPU-accelerated options available.
Deployment & Community
Blinko can be deployed in seconds using Docker, making self-hosting accessible to users of all technical levels. As an open-source project under GPL-3.0, it welcomes community contributions and maintains complete transparency through its GitHub repository. Whether you're a creative professional, researcher, or knowledge worker, Blinko provides the speed and privacy needed to preserve every spark of inspiration.
Highlights
AI-powered RAG search with natural language queries for effortless note retrieval
Self-hosted architecture ensuring complete data ownership and privacy control
Offline voice recognition on Windows with Whisper (CPU and CUDA versions)
Lightweight Tauri-based multi-platform support for macOS, Windows, Android, and Linux
Pros
- Complete data ownership with self-hosted deployment
- Fast Docker-based installation in seconds
- Natural language AI search makes finding notes intuitive
- Multi-platform native apps with lightweight architecture
Considerations
- Requires self-hosting infrastructure and maintenance
- GPU-accelerated voice recognition needs CUDA Toolkit installation
- Whisper models require manual download from Hugging Face
- Limited to individual use cases rather than team collaboration
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Fit guide
Great for
- Individuals who prioritize privacy and data ownership
- Creative professionals capturing fleeting ideas and inspiration
- Users comfortable with self-hosting and Docker deployment
- Knowledge workers needing fast, searchable plain-text note storage
Not ideal when
- Teams requiring real-time collaboration features
- Users seeking fully managed cloud-hosted solutions
- Organizations needing enterprise-grade access controls
- Non-technical users uncomfortable with self-hosting
How teams use it
Creative Brainstorming
Writers and designers capture spontaneous ideas instantly, then use AI search to rediscover related concepts when developing projects
Research Note Management
Researchers store observations and findings in Markdown, retrieving relevant notes through natural language queries during analysis
Voice-to-Text Journaling
Users on Windows leverage offline Whisper recognition to dictate thoughts without internet, maintaining complete privacy
Personal Knowledge Base
Knowledge workers build a searchable repository of insights, accessible across all devices with self-hosted data control
Tech snapshot
TypeScript92%
Rust3%
CSS2%
Kotlin1%
JavaScript1%
Shell1%
Frequently asked questions
What AI capabilities does Blinko offer?
Blinko uses RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) to enable natural language search queries, making it easy to find notes without exact keyword matching.
Does Blinko support offline voice recognition?
Yes, the Windows desktop version includes Whisper-powered offline voice recognition. Choose the CPU version (Blinko.exe) or GPU-accelerated CUDA version for faster performance.
Which platforms does Blinko support?
Blinko runs natively on macOS, Windows, Android, and Linux through its Tauri-based architecture, providing consistent performance across all platforms.
Is my data private with Blinko?
Yes. Blinko is self-hosted, meaning all notes and data remain on your own infrastructure. You maintain complete control and ownership of your information.
Project at a glance
Active- Stars
- 9,236
- Watchers
- 9,236
- Forks
- 651
LicenseGPL-3.0
Repo age1 year old
Last commitlast week
Self-hostingSupported
Primary languageTypeScript
Last synced 53 minutes ago