BackThynk

intro.mp4

A simple, lightweight micro-blogging service for people who think too fast.

Quickstart

Linux AMD64

# Download and extract
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Backthynk/Backthynk/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*linux-amd64.tar.gz" | cut -d '"' -f 4 | wget -qi -
tar -xzf backthynk-*-linux-amd64.tar.gz

# Make executable and run
chmod +x backthynk-*
./backthynk-*

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

Linux ARM64

# Download and extract
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Backthynk/Backthynk/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*linux-arm64.tar.gz" | cut -d '"' -f 4 | wget -qi -
tar -xzf backthynk-*-linux-arm64.tar.gz

# Make executable and run
chmod +x backthynk-*
./backthynk-*

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

macOS Apple Silicon (ARM64)

# Download and extract
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Backthynk/Backthynk/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*macos-arm64.tar.gz" | cut -d '"' -f 4 | xargs curl -LO
tar -xzf backthynk-*-macos-arm64.tar.gz

# Remove quarantine and run
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine backthynk-*
./backthynk-*

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

macOS Intel (AMD64)

# Download and extract
curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Backthynk/Backthynk/releases/latest | grep "browser_download_url.*macos-amd64.tar.gz" | cut -d '"' -f 4 | xargs curl -LO
tar -xzf backthynk-*-macos-amd64.tar.gz

# Remove quarantine and run
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine backthynk-*
./backthynk-*

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

Windows

# Download and extract
$latestRelease = Invoke-RestMethod -Uri "https://api.github.com/repos/Backthynk/Backthynk/releases/latest"
$downloadUrl = $latestRelease.assets | Where-Object { $_.name -like "*windows-amd64.zip" } | Select-Object -ExpandProperty browser_download_url
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $downloadUrl -OutFile "backthynk.zip"
Expand-Archive -Path backthynk.zip -DestinationPath .

# Run it
.\backthynk-*.exe

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

Note: Windows Defender may block the app. Click "More info" → "Run anyway" to proceed.

Docker Build

# Clone and build
git clone https://github.com/Backthynk/backthynk.git
cd backthynk
make build-with-docker # Image building can take ~10-30 minutes first time, depending on your connection.

# Navigate to your platform's release folder and run
cd releases
# cd to your platform folder
./backthynk-*

# Open your browser at http://localhost:1369

What is this?

BackThynk is a personal knowledge dump.

Not a blog, not a wiki - something in between.

Think Twitter timeline but for your brain.

Create spaces, nest them, throw in quick thoughts, attach files, and actually find them later.

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Core Features

🎯 Spaces & Subspaces

Organize thoughts hierarchically.

Create "Work > Projects > ClientName" or "Learning > Go > Snippets"

📝 Quick Posts

No titles, no formatting pressure.

Just write and post. 140 or 10,000 characters - your choice.

Markdown support (coming soon)

📎 File Attachments

Drag & drop anything. PDFs, videos, images.

They live with your thoughts, not in some separate media library.

📅 Timeline View

See everything chronologically.

Filter by space. Search (coming soon).

🌙 Dark/Light Mode

Easy on the eyes at 3 AM.

⚡ Incredibly Low-Weight and Performant

Frontend: 37.7KB (Brotli) / 44.7KB (gzip) - entire app

Backend: ~0.6MB RAM idle

SQLite database: no external dependencies

Use Cases

• Daily Journaling : Quick entries without the blog overhead
• Project Notes : Keep context with your files
• Learning Log : Track what you're studying with resources attached
• Job Applications : Space per company, posts with resumes/covers attached
• Bookmarking++ : Not just links but your thoughts about them
• Code Snippets : That thing you figured out at 2 AM and will forget

The Philosophy

I built this because I needed a place for incomplete thoughts.

Most note-taking apps want you to write documents, but I just wanted somewhere to dump the 10 things bouncing around my head without thinking about structure, formatting, or whether it's "good enough".

Why Another Note App?

1. Blogs are too heavy - I don't want to write an introduction, body, and conclusion for a Docker command I'll forget
2. Wikis are too structured - Not everything fits in a knowledge graph
3. Social media is too public - These are my thoughts and I dont want models to be built with them.
4. Most note apps are too complex - I don't need databases, tags, backlinks, and 47 different views

Design Principles

• Start minimal, add as needed - Features are opt-in, not opt-out
• No feature coupling - Enable file uploads without enabling markdown. Each feature stands alone.
• Respect the user's machine - 38KB for a full app.
• No surprises - Vanilla JS might be "harder" but it's predictable
• Own your data - SQLite database you can read with any tool

Technical Choices

• Go + SQLite: Portable, fast, single binary distribution
• Vanilla JS: No framework churn, no build steps, no node_modules
• Tailwind (minimal): Just enough styling without the bloat
• Unit tested backend: The foundation is solid, the UI can evolve

Current Limitations

This is a working prototype that I use daily, but :

• Single user only - No authentication system yet (coming soon)
• No public sharing - This is your personal space for now (coming soon)
• Basic search - Full-text search (coming soon)
• No post format - Markdown support in a Github style standard (coming soon)

Roadmap Ideas

• Full-text search with SQLite FTS5
• Markdown support within posts (github style format)
• Integrate a self-hosted tiny LLM model to provide custom vizualisation in a Space. (Example: Turn raw text into a more comfortable format to synthetize and analyze)
• Import from Twitter/Mastodon archives

Contributing

The codebase is intentionally simple. No framework magic, no abstract patterns. If you know Go and JavaScript, you can contribute.

Key files:

• cmd/server/main.go - Entry point
• internal/api/router.go - HTTP routes
• internal/storage/ - Database layer
• web/static/js/main.js - Frontend logic

Let's chat !

If you use it and like it, please join the discord channel I've created for this project and let's have a chat.

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Built for people with too many thoughts and not enough time to organize them properly. Try it. Break it. Tell me what's missing.