Benchmarking is a mess everywhere. Sure you can get some level of accuracy but reproducing any kind of benchmark results across machines is impossible. That's why perf people focus on things like CPU cycles, heap size, cache access etc instead of time. Even with multiple runs and averaged out results you can only get a surface level idea of how your code is actually performing.
React is not slow. React is not "big". React is not the reason your website is slow.
Any engineer who thinks that its React that is causing the slow renders and replacing it with X is deluded. Yes, there are ways to make slow React web apps. But there are also ways to make fast React web apps. It just requires effort and a little bit of foresight.
You'd already be using source maps in any real-world scenario so I am not sure what's the value proposition here outside of "just for fun, I guess".
The tsc transpilation to lower ES versions is actually really useful when using not-so-recent Node versions. Not to mention this severely restricts TypeScript syntax to "just types" which isn't too bad but it means you now have to worry about yet another thing.
Then there's the ESM & CJS mess. You almost always want to export in both formats which will change a lot of the syntax, so this quickly falls apart for anything serious.
Our goal with Notesnook has always been to make privacy simpler to adopt for normal users who don't have time to think about privacy. We do that by making privacy that "default" everywhere in the app. We recently crossed 100K registered users with over 4 million notes created on our platform.
If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer.
Not slow changes. Offering self hosted officially means that we have to be aware of users who are self hosting before we make any drastic changes, writing migrating guides, and giving some sort of support. All that has an impact on productivity.
There's no point in offering users self hosting if you are going to throw them into a fire by doing so. Notesnook is rapidly evolving and changing, and hoping for self hosted users to keep up is impractical. Instead, we want to first stabilize the backend, and then think about self hosting.
After v3, our primary focus will be on self hosting and getting an audit done.
It seems to me you are looking for a syntax highlighter in a note taking app. Which modern language are you looking for?
There are encrypted backups. Actually, backups are encrypted by default.
Notesnook also works offline by default so there's no need for a special mode. It's also, obviously, local-first since everything gets encrypted on your device. We don't have a lot of options there.
Markdown itself is more technical than, say, a WYSIWYG editor. People are more used to using MS Word and Google Docs. Obsidian prioritizes a different kind of note taking and, hence, you'll find a lot of tech-savvy users among its community. There's a reason for that.
Obsidian is a cool app but it's targeted for a very specific kind of user. Of course, for a technical user Obsidian would feel like home but for an average user with not a lot of technical know how, Obsidian would go way over their heads. Not everyone appreciates having to handle files, worry about syncing, security etc.
Oh wow. Just heard the Notesnook is on the front page of HN. I am the co-founder so if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Oh and to clear a few confusions:
1. Notesnook is 100% open source. That includes the server, client apps, and everything else. It's not partially open source.
2. Zero knowledge does not mean Zero Knowledge Proof but Zero Knowledge as in we, the company and people behind Notesnook, have no knowledge regarding what you have in your notes. I see that this might be more accurately called "no knowledge".