Vellen writes plain Markdown into a folder you choose, on your own device. Everything it adds — links, a graph, boards, whiteboards, reminders, private sync — is built on top of that, never instead of it.
No account. No servers. No subscription.
No proprietary database, nothing to export. Your vault opens in any text editor, on any computer, in ten years — with or without Vellen.
Everything happens on your device. Writing, searching, linking, boards — none of it waits for a connection or a login.
There's nothing to sign up for because there's nowhere your notes are sent. We don't run servers. We can't read your writing, and we don't want to.
The folder is not the idea — the link is. Vellen is built so a thought you wrote down in March finds its way back to you in September.
Type [[ and link to any note. The Links panel shows every note that mentions the one you're reading — even the ones that never linked back. The graph shows the shape of your thinking.
Give the notes in a folder a few properties — a status, an owner, a date — and that folder becomes a table or a kanban board. Drag a card between columns and the note's property changes. The board is a view; the notes are still the notes.
Some ideas aren't a list yet. Put cards on a canvas, draw arrows between them, drop a whole note in as a card — or type a mind map faster than you can arrange it: Tab for a branch, Enter for a sibling, one click to tidy the tree. The whiteboard is a file in your folder like everything else.
Tasks gather themselves from wherever you wrote them. Give one a day and a time, and Vellen reminds you when it comes, even with the app closed. Tap the reminder to open the note, or mark it done or snooze it from the reminder itself.
The other half of the task list. Tasks answers "what is there to do"; the Calendar answers "what's coming up, and what did I already miss". Every dated note and every task with a due date lands on it by itself — there is nothing to create or set up. Month shows the shape of things; Week and Day show the hours.
due, deadline or date property, and tasks with due dates, by month, week or day
Formatting shows as you type — headings, emphasis, lists, checkboxes, callouts — and the file underneath stays plain text.
Markdown tables with an editor that helps, Mermaid diagrams, and LaTeX maths rendered in place.
Full-text search across the vault, find-and-replace, and smart folders that fill themselves from rules you set.
Two notes side by side. Open the note you're linking to without losing the one you're writing. Computer and iPad; a phone shows one note at a time.
In-app web capture on every device, plus a browser clipper for Chrome, Edge or Brave on the computer, turn a page into a note with its source kept.
Turn any folder into a static website you can host anywhere — your notes, your domain, no middleman. A desktop feature; sync brings the notes to it.
Most notes apps keep your writing inside themselves — a database, a cloud, a format that only they can read. Leave, and you export. Vellen never has that conversation with you. Your notes are Markdown files in a folder you picked. Open them with anything. Back them up however you already do. If Vellen vanished tomorrow, you would lose nothing.
We don't run servers, so there is nothing to sign up for and nothing to leak. Sync, if you turn it on, goes through your cloud drive, and you can seal it with end-to-end encryption before it leaves your device. No analytics, no telemetry, no model trained on your journal.
You shouldn't have to decide where a thought lives before you've had it. Write first. Link when a connection occurs to you. Add a property when a folder starts to look like a list. The board, the graph and the task list are views over what you already wrote — never a separate thing to maintain.
A notes app is something you trust with years of thinking. It shouldn't stop working the month you cancel. Vellen is a one-time purchase, with a full-featured trial first so you can decide with your own notes in it.
Connect your own Google Drive and your notes follow you to every device. We never see them: there is no Vellen server for them to pass through.
Or skip sync entirely. Vellen is complete without it.
Ask questions of your own writing, and get answers with citation chips that open the note they came from. With Anthropic, have it search the web and draft a note from what it finds, with sources. Use the provider you already pay — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Qwen or xAI — or point Vellen at a local model so your notes reach no AI company at all. On a phone or tablet, that model runs on a computer on your own network.
It knows Vellen, too. Ask "how do I make a board?" or "does this sync?" and it answers from the app's own Help — real menu names and the shortcuts for your device, never an invented feature. The manual is comprehensive; this is the way to read it without reading it.
How it's different
Most apps put AI on a subscription and route your notes through their own service to do it. Vellen has no service. Your key goes to your provider, your notes go with the question you asked, and the answer comes back to you — Save as note keeps it as a file in your notes folder. To switch providers, connect the one you want in Settings → AI and disconnect the other. Turn it off and it's gone.
The same app, the same files, on every screen you write on. Vellen is in the final stages of store review right now — leave your address and we'll tell you the day it's live.
One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac together. Android is next.
The same files everywhere, but not every screen is a desk. Here is exactly what each device can do today, so nothing is a surprise.
| Feature | Mac & Windows | iPad | iPhone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing, links, graph, search, tags & propertiesLive Markdown, backlinks, tables, diagrams, maths, callouts | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Sync & end-to-end encryption | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Boards & tablesKanban and table views of a folder | ✓ | ✓drag cards by finger, trackpad or mouse | ✓Boards: hold a card and drag it to another column, or ⋯ → Move to. Tables: read-only, tap a row to open its note. |
| WhiteboardsMind-map keys, folding, tidy, outline in and out | ✓ | ✓touch gestures; branch buttons instead of keys; no multi-select | ✓touch gestures; branch buttons instead of keys; no multi-select |
| Tasks dashboard | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reminders at a task's timeeven with Vellen closed; Mark done and Snooze on the reminder | ✓Windows: the Microsoft Store version | ✓ | ✓ |
| Calendar | ✓month, week and day; drag to a day or an hour | ✓month, week and day; drag to a day or an hour | List of days, and Daytap to open; no drag |
| Add to Calendara task sent to your calendar app as a copy | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Your calendar's events beside your tasksread-only, in Week and Day | Macnot on Windows yet | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tabs & split view | ✓ | ✓ | —one note at a time |
| Version history, trash, smart folders | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Daily notes & templates | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI with a cloud providerweb search with Anthropic | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI with a local model | ✓runs on the computer | Via your computerpoints at a model on your home network | Via your computerpoints at a model on your home network |
| Capture a web page in the app | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Browser clipperChrome, Edge, Brave | ✓ | — | — |
| Import from other appsEvernote, Notion, OneNote, Google Keep; Apple Notes in a coming update | ✓ | —import on the computer; sync brings it over | — |
| Export & publishPDF, share as a web page, publish a folder as a website | ✓ | — | — |
| Keyboard shortcuts & command palette | ✓ | ✓With a keyboard: the common shortcuts (⌘N, ⌘P, ⌘W…); every command is also under All commands on the icon strip | —every command is in the ⋯ menu |
| Quick capture from any appa system-wide shortcut that opens a capture box | ✓ | — | — |
Android phones follow the iPhone column and Android tablets the iPad column once it ships. Anything marked — is on the list, not off the table.
Every feature is on from the first minute — sync, encryption, boards, whiteboards, AI. If Vellen isn't for you, your notes are still just files in a folder; nothing to export, nothing to cancel.
Prices are per store, so the App Store purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac together, and the Microsoft Store purchase covers Windows. Each is a one-time payment. No subscription, ever.
Full-feature trial, then
On Windows the Microsoft Store runs a 15-day trial of its own; same idea, one day longer.
If they're Markdown files, yes — point Vellen at the folder and they're your vault, links and all. Most notes apps can export to Markdown; once yours has, you're done. Coming from Evernote, Notion, OneNote or Google Keep? Import them on a Mac or Windows PC (Settings → Import & capture), and sync brings them to your phone.
Yes. Give a task a day and a time, or just a day, and Vellen reminds you when it comes, even with the app closed. Each device sets its own reminders with its own notifications, so there is no server in the middle and nothing to sign up for. Turn them on in Settings → Reminders on each device you want reminded on.
No. Vellen is complete on one device. Sync exists for people with a Mac and a phone, and it goes through your own Google Drive, never through us.
Nothing. They're Markdown files in a folder you chose. Whiteboards are JSON files beside them. Open them in any editor or in another app that reads Markdown.
No. One purchase, per store, and every update to that version is included — nothing recurring, ever. If a future major version (a 2.0) ever carries an upgrade price, it will be a one-time purchase too, and your current version keeps working exactly as it is. The trial is the full app for two weeks.
Only the provider you chose, only when you ask, and only the notes involved in the question. Vellen has no service in the middle. Use a local model and nothing leaves your computer — or, from a phone or tablet, your own network.
Help is built in, and it's thorough — every feature, every shortcut, written for the device you're holding. If you've set up AI, you can simply ask it: "how do I add a property?" gets an answer drawn from that Help, not a guess. And there's a person at admin@capitalcalcs.com.
Your notes are sealed on your device with a passphrase only you know, before they upload to your Drive. Google stores files whose contents it can't read. Note and folder names, sizes and dates stay visible, so you can still find your notes in Drive; Help lists exactly what isn't hidden. The copies on your own devices stay plain, so forgetting the passphrase costs you nothing locally — you get a recovery phrase too, and any device that still has your notes can rebuild the Drive copy. Nobody can open the sealed copy for you, including us. That's the point.
Vellen is made by a small company that keeps its own notes in it.