Maho Notes vs CogniLog

Maho Notes is a markdown-based note-taking app for people who care about their words — and want to keep them. Every note is a plain .md file on your device. No proprietary format, no vendor lock-in, no servers you don't control. Sync through your own iCloud, your own GitHub repo, or keep notes purely local — your choice. A NOTES APP THAT SPEAKS YOUR LANGUAGE Full multilingual support, including search across English, 中文 (Traditional Chinese), 日本語 (Japanese), and 한국어 (Korean) — powered by a CJK-aware tokenizer that actually understands word boundaries in each language. Add furigana to Japanese kanji, Zhuyin to Mandarin, Tâi-lô to Taiwanese, or readings to Korean — all with one simple syntax: {漢字|ふりがな}. THREE WAYS TO SEARCH • Keyword search — fast SQLite FTS5 across every note • Semantic search — on-device vector embeddings find ideas, not just words • Hybrid — both, fused into one ranked list Models run entirely on-device. Nothing about your notes leaves your hardware. WRITTEN IN MARKDOWN, RENDERED BEAUTIFULLY • Full CommonMark + GitHub Flavored Markdown • KaTeX math equations • Mermaid diagrams • Syntax-highlighted code blocks • Ruby annotations for any language • Image and asset embedding • Tables, task lists, footnotes ORGANIZE YOUR WAY Vaults hold collections. Collections hold notes. Drag-and-drop reordering, custom icons and colors, hierarchical sub-collections, and per-collection ordering — all stored in plain YAML you can read. SYNC THAT RESPECTS YOU • iCloud — seamless across your Apple devices • GitHub — version your notes as a private repo, sync through your own account using GitHub's official Device Flow login (no third-party server in the middle) • Device-only — keep everything offline Conflicts get clearly-named files (note.conflict-DeviceName.md), never silent overwrites. UNIVERSAL APP One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Optimized layouts for each: a focus-friendly stack on iPhone, a three-column workspace on iPad and Mac, with the same vault wherever you are.

CogniLog is a work log for anything worth remembering. It captures the story behind your work: the decisions, the dead ends, and the reasoning you would otherwise forget. Whether your days are made of code, meetings, deliverables, chapters, or experiments, you write it down once and get it back whenever you need it. The work log your AI can read. CogniLog's macOS version comes with a built-in connection (an MCP server) that lets an AI assistant you already use, like Claude, read your log and answer questions about your own work, even entries authored in the iOS version. Ask what you were doing last week, or why you made a call three months ago. Your assistant can even add entries of its own, so the two of you share one space that you both write to and read from. Write the way you already write. Entries are plain text with light Markdown, and they format as you type. Headings become headings, code becomes code. Drop in a #tag and CogniLog files it for you, and channels keep each project or context separate. No forms, no fields, just the log. See the year, drill to the moment. Capture is only half the job. The Almanac turns your log into a map. Scan whole months at a glance, hover any day for a summary of what happened, and drill from the year down to a single entry. Come back from a busy week, or a week away, and pick the thread back up. Built native, and it feels it. A real Mac app and a real iPhone app, not a website in a wrapper. Log from your Mac while you work, or catch a thought on your phone while you wait in line. Capture meets you where you are, from the menu bar to the lock screen widget, with optional daily and streak reminders. Yours, and only yours. No new accounts and no servers of ours. Your log stays on your devices and syncs through your own iCloud when you want it everywhere. Using the macOS version bring your history in from apps like Apple Notes, Day One, Obsidian, and Bear, or any Markdown files, viewing it on your iOS device; and take it all back out as plain Markdown any time. No lock-in, no ads, no tracking. Currently free. Everything in the app is free right now. If that ever changes, it won't change for the people already here. CogniLog is made by Rivet and Rune, a small studio building native tools and experiences.