note.md

What it does

note.md is a local-first, markdown-based research workspace for macOS that combines PDF reading, note-taking, citation management, and writing into a single native app. It replaces the need to juggle separate tools like Zotero, Obsidian, and PDF readers. The app stores all data locally on the user's machine, ensuring privacy. Premium features include local AI capabilities such as semantic search, automatic extraction of figures and tables from PDFs, and an Evidence Scan that finds supporting or contradictory passages for any claim.

Who it is for

note.md is designed for students and researchers who read academic papers, manage sources, take linked markdown notes, cite evidence, and turn literature into structured writing. The website specifically mentions programs at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, and ETH Zürich, indicating a target audience in rigorous academic environments. It appeals to users who value privacy, local-first architecture, and a unified workflow without relying on cloud services.

Why it matters

Academic research workflows are often fragmented across multiple apps: a reference manager (Zotero), a note-taking tool (Obsidian), a PDF reader, and a writing editor. This fragmentation leads to context switching, syncing issues, and loss of connections between notes and sources. note.md addresses this by providing an integrated environment where PDFs, notes, citations, and writing coexist. Every citation links back to the exact highlighted passage, and notes can be linked bidirectionally to build a knowledge graph. The local-first approach ensures data ownership and offline functionality, which is critical for researchers who handle sensitive or unpublished work.

Launch signal

note.md is available on the Mac App Store. The website showcases detailed workflows for reading, literature review, writing, and knowledge graph building, along with technical articles explaining the local AI architecture. The founder is André Aigner. The app is free to start, with a premium subscription for AI features starting at $4.99/month for students.

Brand and naming

The name "note.md" directly references the markdown file format, signaling a plain-text, developer-friendly approach. The lowercase, dot-notation style evokes code and simplicity. The tagline "Write with Clarity. Think in Layers." emphasizes structured thinking. The brand positions itself as an "academic IDE" — an integrated development environment for research — borrowing terminology from software engineering to appeal to technically inclined researchers.