When we told people Kelahit would be local-first, the most common reaction was: why make it harder on yourselves? Cloud-first is simpler to build, simpler to operate, simpler to monetise. All true. We did it anyway.
Your notes shouldn’t need us
A local-first app keeps the source of truth on your device. The network is an enhancement, not a dependency. Close your laptop on a plane and everything still works; open it later and changes sync quietly in the background.
This has a quiet consequence we love: if Kelahit disappeared tomorrow, your notes wouldn’t. They live as plain files you already have.
Encryption as a default, not a setting
Because sync is end-to-end encrypted, we never hold readable copies of your content. That rules out a few business models. Good. We’d rather sell a tool than a surveillance pipeline.
The best way to protect data is to never be able to read it.
Local-first is more engineering for us and more freedom for you. On a long enough timeline, that’s the only trade that matters.