Documents and notes decision

Craft

A capable developer can build a useful single‑user web replacement (editor + tasks + sync) in about a week and low monthly hosting cost; Craft's primary durable advantage is brand/awards and polished native apps which are costly to replicate.

Visit website

You pay

$8/mo

$96/yr

Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.

You’d pay instead

$50one-off30 h to build

$0/mo8 h/mo upkeep

On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.

Open-source builds that already do this

Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Craft alternatives, with the arithmetic →

AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy75,039AGPL-3.0Open-source Notion-like collaborative workspace with rich block editor, docs, and syncing.Open on GitHub logseq/logseq44,304AGPL-3.0Privacy-first, block-based knowledge manager with rich editor, tasks, backlinks, and multi-device sync.Open on GitHub

What a replacement has to do

Create and edit rich documents, attach inline tasks, store and retrieve documents from a backend, and search/filter by folder/tag.

What it still won’t have

Polished native apps (iOS, macOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android, Vision Pro)
Packaged brand, awards and ecosystem polish
Built-in AI assistant credits and hosted AI models
Advanced publishing/hosting features and media limits
Team-tier collaboration conveniences and admin billing

What remains hard

Brand trustApp Store Award Mac App of the Year
Brand trustApple Design Awards Finalist
Brand trustWebby Awarded three times in various categories

Read the build prompt

First-year cost

Keep paying

Paying is—cheaper in year one.

On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 1 seat.

Paid seatsseats

Money you would actually spend

Keep paying

—

Subscription price × seats × 12

Build it

—

AI build —APIs + hosting —

Time you would spend

—

What you would spend

AI to build it$ onceAPIs + hosting$/mo

What we assumed

Initial buildhrsMonthly upkeephrsYour rate$/hr

The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.

Runnable build prompt

Not run yet

Build a single-tenant web notes app using React (or Svelte) + Tailwind for UI, Node.js + Express for API, and PostgreSQL for storage. Implement: (1) a block-based rich-text editor (e.g., TipTap or Slate) with save/load, (2) user auth (email + password via NextAuth or simple JWT), (3) per-user document storage with metadata (spaces, folders, tags) in Postgres, (4) inline tasks attached to blocks with a task list view and basic reminders, (5) full-text search using Postgres full-text search, and (6) a REST API for sync and a responsive web UI. Out of scope: native mobile apps, hosted AI assistant, team billing, and web publishing. Include input validation, error handling, automated tests for API endpoints, and a README with deployment steps (Dockerfiles and a single-command deploy to a small cloud VM and managed Postgres).

How we checked4 sources · 2/3 runs agreed · evidence score 89

How the score was reached

Build verdict base78
An open-source build was found+5
4 cited sources+3
Price verified on pricing page+3
Evidence score89

The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.

How scoring works →

Cited sources · 4

Every page the run actually retrieved.

official productCraft — Productivity App for Notes, Tasks, and Docs
official pricingCraft Pricing Plans
open sourceAppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy
open sourcelogseq/logseq

Integrity checks

What held up, and what did not.

✓ Price read off the page! 2 of 3 runs agreed; the verdict is the majority✓ Citations limited to fetched pages! 3 moats quoted from the page