A local-first infinite canvas for PDF highlights and video notes

Most note apps still assume a note is a page. That works until the job is to keep a PDF, a lecture recording, and your own comments in one place and move a sentence from one topic to another.
Most note apps still assume a note is a page. That works until the job is to keep a PDF, a lecture recording, and your own comments in one place and move a sentence from one topic to another.I built Flexnote for that job. It is a local-first note app: an infinite canvas, Markdown cards, bidirectional links, a tag database, PDF highlighting, and timestamp notes on video. Notes stay on the machine unless you turn sync on.
What “local-first” means here
Files are stored on the device. Editing works offline. Sync is off until you connect your own target: WebDAV (including Nextcloud), S3, OneDrive, or Baidu Netdisk. Credentials stay with you. Flexnote does not train models on your notes.Desktop apps are available for Windows 10+ and macOS 11+. An Android app is available. The website can preview a published whiteboard. A full web app and an iOS app are not shipping yet.
The canvas is the workspace, not a plugin
A card can be a Markdown note, a PDF, a video, a web clip, or a todo. You place cards on a board, pan and zoom, and draw links between them. The same board can be read as a mind map.A tag database sits on those cards. Custom fields, filters, list view, and kanban are views of the same cards, not a second copy of the library.The canvas renderer is our own. Panning stays responsive with large boards; the product target is smooth interaction past 10,000 nodes.
PDF highlights and video timestamps become cards
Drop a PDF on the board and highlight it there. A highlight can become a card that links back to the page, so an excerpt is something you can move next to another paper instead of a mark trapped in one file.Video works the same way. Local files and major online sources, including YouTube, can take timestamp notes. The highlight keeps the time and a frame, and the card can sit on the canvas next to the PDF and your written notes.Web clipping saves a page’s title, text, and images as a card.
AI is optional and uses your key
Flexnote AI is a knowledge-base assistant: cited answers from your notes, summaries, translation, mind maps, and edits on the current whiteboard (sticky notes, links, groups). Chat uses an API key you provide, including DeepSeek and other OpenAI-compatible providers. Semantic indexing is metered separately from chat. Pro plans include 3,000 index points.If you do not want AI, the canvas, files, and local storage do not depend on it.
What the free plan includes
The free plan is 3 whiteboards, 100 cards, the basic canvas, and local storage on one device. Pro adds unlimited boards and cards, AI, cloud sync, and more than one device. There is also a lifetime license. Current prices are on the pricing page.One hundred cards is enough to judge whether a board fits the work. If the job is a long document, a team wiki, or a flashcard queue, this is the wrong tool.
Where it fits, and where it does not
Use it when source material is mixed — papers, lecture video, clips from the web — and you still need to arrange the excerpts yourself.Skip it if you need realtime multiplayer editing, a company knowledge base, or an open file format you can grep in a repo. Sync here moves a library between your own devices. It is not simultaneous collaboration. Publishing a board creates a view link; it does not turn the canvas into a shared editor.Download for Windows, macOS, or Android: myflexnote.com/download. Documentation: wiki.myflexnote.com.