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2025

Leaving Notion Behind: Why Notesnook Became My Go-To for Simple, Private Notes

A year ago, I was a dedicated Notion user, relying on it to manage my notes, tasks, and ideas. Its all-in-one workspace promised endless possibilities-databases, wikis, Kanban boards, you name it. However, as time went on, I realized that Notion's complexity was more of a hindrance. I often spent countless hours on customizing the layouts instead of populating them with my ideas 😄 Notion is incredibly powerful and its versatility is amazing. For simple tasks - at least for my use cases - it felt like overkill. My Notion pages turned into elaborate dashboards when all I really wanted was a simple place to jot down thoughts.

I came across Notesnook on PrivacyGuides while researching other secure alternatives.

Deploying a Fully Free AI Coding Assistant on Windows with VS Code, Cline, and OpenRouter.ai

I’ve been experimenting with AI-powered tools to build quick prototypes and streamline my Windows-based workflow. So far, the best free stack that works for me is VS Code + Cline + OpenRouter.ai.

For this guide I’m using Qwen3 - 235B A22B (Free)—released just a few days ago—as my default model. Note: this model supports text input/output only.