DeepNotes

Self-hosted, end-to-end encrypted infinite canvas for visual note-taking.

Fork of DeepNotesApp/DeepNotes — cleaned up for self-hosting (no Stripe, no SaaS dependencies, all features unlocked).

Features

• Infinite canvas with floating notes and directional arrows
• Deep page nesting (pages inside notes inside pages)
• End-to-end encryption (libsodium)
• Real-time collaboration (Yjs CRDT)
• Rich text editor (TipTap/ProseMirror) with math (KaTeX), code blocks, checklists
• Export any page as structured Markdown for AI assistants
• Groups with roles and encrypted invitations
• Two-factor authentication
• Dark mode

Quick Install (Proxmox VE)

From the Proxmox shell:

bash -c "$(wget -qLO - https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Emilien-Etadam/DeepNotes/dev/pve-install.sh)"

Creates a Debian 12 LXC with Docker, clones the repo, generates all secrets, builds and starts the stack. Point your reverse proxy to the container's port 80.

Manual Install (Docker)

git clone https://github.com/Emilien-Etadam/DeepNotes.git
cd DeepNotes
cp template.env .env
# Edit .env: set CLIENT_APP_URL, generate secrets with openssl rand -hex 32
docker compose up -d --build

Architecture

Six Docker containers:

Container	Role
client	Nginx serving Vue 3 SPA
app-server	Fastify + tRPC API
collab-server	Yjs WebSocket (CRDT sync)
realtime-server	WebSocket notifications
postgres	PostgreSQL 16
keydb	KeyDB (Redis-compatible cache)

Configuration

Copy template.env to .env. All secrets must be replaced with unique values generated via openssl rand -hex 32 (for hex secrets) or openssl rand -base64 32 (for base64 keys). CLIENT_APP_URL must match your public HTTPS URL.

Update

bash /opt/deepnotes/update.sh

Backups

• Manual run:

  bash scripts/backup-db.sh

• Install cron:

  echo "0 3 * * * /opt/deepnotes/scripts/backup-db.sh >> /var/log/deepnotes-backup.log 2>&1" | crontab -

• Restore:

  docker exec -i deepnotes-postgres pg_restore -U deepnotes -d deepnotes --clean < backup.dump

License

AGPL-3.0 — same as the original project.