What is Heynote used for?

Heynote is a desktop scratchpad for developers and power users, built around a persistent, block-based text buffer with per-block syntax highlighting. It is a good fit for quick scratch notes for developers, and holding API responses and snippets while debugging.

Is Heynote open source?

Yes. Heynote is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at heyman/heynote and is written mainly in JavaScript.

Yes. Heynote is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.

Can I self-host Heynote?

Yes. Heynote can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Heynote an alternative to?

Heynote is an open-source alternative to Drafts and Tot. Other open-source alternatives to Drafts include Simplenote, Memos and FSNotes.

Is Heynote actively maintained?

The most recent commit to Heynote was on 24 June 2026, and the latest release is v2.9.1, published on 15 July 2026. The project has 5.4k stars on GitHub.

Heynote: open-source alternative to Drafts, Tot

About Heynote

Heynote is a scratchpad and note-taking app for developers and power users. It works like one large persistent text buffer where you can drop anything: a Slack message you are not ready to send, an API's JSON response, meeting notes or a daily to-do list.

Buffers are divided into blocks, and each block can be assigned a language such as JavaScript, JSON or Markdown, giving syntax highlighting and auto-formatting for JSON. Language auto-detection, multiple buffers in tabs, single and multi-buffer search, inline images, a math and calculator mode with currency conversion, multi-cursor editing, spell checking and dark and light themes are included. A global hotkey can show or hide the app, and key bindings can be default, Emacs-like or custom.

Heynote runs on macOS, Windows and Linux; there is no mobile app. It is built with JavaScript and its license is listed as Other, so check the repository terms before reuse. The author accepts contributions that fit the project's vision, especially bug fixes.

Key features

Block-based persistent text buffers
Per-block syntax highlighting for many languages
Math mode with currency conversion
Multiple buffers in tabs
Auto-formatting and language detection
Global hotkey and custom key bindings

Good fit for

→Quick scratch notes for developers
→Holding API responses and snippets while debugging

Built with: JavaScript
Tags: scratchpad; note-taking; developer-tools; desktop-app; editor; productivity; syntax-highlighting

Heynote: questions and answers

What is Heynote used for?: Heynote is a desktop scratchpad for developers and power users, built around a persistent, block-based text buffer with per-block syntax highlighting. It is a good fit for quick scratch notes for developers, and holding API responses and snippets while debugging.
Is Heynote open source?: Yes. Heynote is open source under a custom licence. Its source code is on GitHub at heyman/heynote and is written mainly in JavaScript.
Is Heynote free?: Yes. Heynote is open source, so the software itself is free to use under the terms of its own licence.
Can I self-host Heynote?: Yes. Heynote can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Heynote an alternative to?: Heynote is an open-source alternative to Drafts and Tot. Other open-source alternatives to Drafts include Simplenote, Memos and FSNotes.
Is Heynote actively maintained?: The most recent commit to Heynote was on 24 June 2026, and the latest release is v2.9.1, published on 15 July 2026. The project has 5.4k stars on GitHub.