Overview

What Noam is, how it works, and who it is for.

Noam documentation

Noam is a local-first Markdown notes app your team edits together in real time.

• Plain .md files on disk. Every note is a regular Markdown file. No database lock-in, no proprietary format. Open them in any editor, back them up with any tool.
• Real-time collaboration. Edit the same notes together, live. Yjs CRDTs keep every cursor and keystroke in sync, and a Rust bridge keeps the CRDT state and your files perfectly in sync.
• AI access on your terms. AI access is opt-in and permission-scoped per file via MCP. Agents see only what you allow, nothing else.
• Zero telemetry. A fresh install makes no network connections. No analytics, no crash reporting, no phone-home code.
• Self-hosted sync. Sync runs on your own server with Docker Compose (Node + Postgres). Free and unlimited, because there is no managed tier.
• Open source. Apache 2.0. github.com/jwm-axoni/noam

Who Noam is for

Teams and individuals who want their notes to stay theirs: plain files, local-first, no account, no tracking. If you have ever wanted the collaboration of a cloud docs tool without handing your notes to someone else's server, Noam is built for you.

Where to start

1. Install Noam on macOS (Apple Silicon).
2. Follow the Quickstart to create your first notes.
3. Self-host sync when you want sharing across machines or teammates.
4. Give an agent scoped AI access to exactly the files it needs.

Current status

Noam is at v0.1.59. It supports macOS on Apple Silicon only, is signed and notarized, and has no auto-update yet. Intel Macs and other platforms are not supported yet.