HillNote vs visualOS

Hillnote is where you think. A local-first, markdown-native workspace that captures your work in AI-native formats - notes, plans, drafts, ideas, decisions. Built on plain markdown, stored on your device, paired with your desktop, and ready for the AI tools you already use. Built for builders, makers, writers, and small teams who think on the move and want their workspace to come with them. Write as you think, the way you think. A clean markdown editor designed for capture, not arrangement. A floating toolbar above the keyboard handles formatting; standard markdown shortcuts work out of the box. Quicknotes for everything in between. Tap + to capture an idea the moment it lands. Save and it's in your workspace; keep typing if you want to expand it. No friction between a thought and a file. Your thinking stays on your device. Every file lives locally as plain markdown. No rented database, no required account, no lock-in. Your work is yours from day one, and yours if you cancel. Free sync across iPhone, iPad, and desktop. The first 100MB syncs free -more than enough for years of notes. Capture on your phone, expand on your desktop, review anywhere. Talk to your knowledge base. Built-in chat reads your own files, edits them, creates new ones, and pulls context from your workspace. Upload images and have them read aloud. Auto mode picks the right model; switch manually when you want to. Supercharge your writing with Apple Intelligence. Native integration with Apple Intelligence writing tools - proofread, rewrite, reformat -via the AI button or text selection. Workspaces with all the context AI models need. Hillnote automatically generates context files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, document registries) so any AI tool you connect can navigate your workspace immediately - no setup, no plugins. Pairs with the agents you already work with. Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, Cursor, Cowork, Claude Code - connect via local or cloud MCP, or point them at the workspace folder directly. Plain markdown means no exports, no conversions. They read and edit the same files you do. Carry your tools, not just your notes. Build small HTML tools - pomodoro timers, day counters, focus checklists, anything else - that travel inside your workspace. Pin them as widgets. Your tools live next to the work they support. A different model. We separate what's a service from what's yours. You subscribe to the workspace and pay for cloud features (expanded sync, frontier AI, publishing, routines, BYO key) only when you need them. Free accounts include limited premium model usage. Your data stays on your device as plain markdown, always canonical, always portable. Start free. Sync free. Stay local. Add cloud when you outgrow it. Download Hillnote and bring your thinking with you.

visualOS is an infinite canvas for people who think visually — for moodboards, notes, images, to-do’s and sketches. It works fully offline and saves to real files in a folder on your device. YOUR DATA IS A FOLDER YOU CAN OPEN Connect any folder on your disk and visualOS mirrors your canvas into it — every folder on the canvas is a real folder, every document a Markdown file, every image an image. Put the folder in iCloud Drive and it syncs through your cloud, not ours. If you ever leave, everything stays readable. Forever. OFFLINE ISN'T A MODE. IT'S THE ARCHITECTURE. On a flight, on the train, in a studio with no signal — visualOS doesn’t care. Your work doesn’t live on our servers, so there is no sync wheel, no forced login. Your canvas opens instantly because everything is already here. BOARDS WITHIN BOARDS Any board can hold more boards. A project becomes a world: moodboards inside client boards inside your studio. Drag elements into a board to file them away; breadcrumbs keep you oriented; a double-tap takes you deeper. NO ACCOUNT. NO SUBSCRIPTION. Open it and work. There's nothing to sign up for, nothing to verify, nothing to cancel. Pay once and it's yours forever — one purchase unlocks every Apple device. FREE IN THE BROWSER, BUT THE APP GOES FURTHER Try visualOS free in your browser at visualos.app. When you're ready for it everywhere, the app adds what a browser can't: true offline access on the train or a plane, native pan-and-zoom gestures, Apple Pencil drawing, and your boards saved as real files that sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac through your own iCloud. EVERYTHING ELSE • Grids that line up your cards in columns and rows • Frames for print, PDFs and social media formats • Mindmaps with three layouts • Remove a picture’s background in one tap, right on your device • Notes & rich text • Long-form documents stored as plain Markdown • Interactive to-do lists on the canvas • Images & PDFs — drag, paste or drop them in • Freehand drawing • Magnetic arrows that snap and bend • Search every board at once • Export as JPG, PNG or PDF, or print • Groups, locking and a snap grid Your ideas. Your files. ABOUT US As creatives, we’ve always relied on visual canvas tools to organize our thoughts, plan projects, and make sense of ideas. But one thing kept bothering us: our files and knowledge were always tied to cloud-based services. We wanted the freedom to access everything offline, without worrying about losing our work or giving up our privacy. So why can’t our own files on our device be visualized in the same intuitive way? And that’s how the idea for visualOS was born: a visual representation of your internal folder structure — offline, private, and secure. Your data stays on your device, where it belongs. We’re Sarah and Gerald, a husband-and-wife team who have been living, loving, and building things together for more than 20 years. Creating visualOS has been a ton of fun and thanks to AI we were able to push it further than we initially imagined. Now we’d love to hear what you think. If visualOS helps you work a little more creatively or makes your files easier to navigate, we’d be grateful if you shared it with others.