Best new markdown, privacy, focus and developer resources: 15 October

The directory additions from 15 October were a mix of free tools and free alternatives to popular apps, plus ten open-source projects from GitHub. This roundup groups them into notes and Markdown writing, passwords and privacy, images, PDFs and diagrams, focus and time tracking, research, and developer projects. Features and pricing change, so check each tool's own page before you commit.

Notes and Markdown writing

Heynote is a free desktop scratchpad for macOS, Windows and Linux that keeps one persistent text buffer split into blocks, each with its own language and syntax highlighting. Maths blocks work as a calculator with variables and unit conversions. It has no mobile app or cloud sync, and its licence is source-available rather than fully open source.

Standard Notes is an open-source notes app that encrypts everything end to end. The free plan includes plain text notes, unlimited device sync, offline access, two-factor authentication and daily encrypted email backups, while rich text, folders and encrypted file storage are paid.

For Markdown, MarkText is a free, open-source desktop editor with a live preview that renders headings and emphasis in place, plus focus and typewriter modes and export to PDF or HTML. StackEdit is a free, open-source editor that runs in the browser with a side-by-side preview and can sync or publish to Google Drive, Dropbox and GitHub, though its development has slowed in recent years. HedgeDoc, formerly CodiMD, lets several people edit the same Markdown note in real time from a shared link; regular use needs your own server, and its public demo is not meant for important notes.

Open Knowledge is a free, open-source Markdown editor and wiki that keeps notes as plain Markdown while letting language models read, write and organise them. It is an early-stage project geared toward technical users.

Passwords and privacy

Bitwarden stores passwords, passkeys and secure notes in an encrypted vault that syncs across devices, and its free plan covers unlimited passwords on unlimited devices. The built-in authenticator and file attachments are paid. KeePassXC takes the opposite approach: a free, open-source password manager for Windows, macOS and Linux that keeps everything in an encrypted database file you control, with no cloud, account or subscription. Syncing between devices is up to you, and there is no official mobile app.

Cryptomator creates encrypted vaults inside Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or any synced folder, encrypting files and file names with AES-256 on your device. The desktop app is free and open source, while the full mobile apps are paid. With any encryption or password tool, keep a safe backup of your master password or keys, because losing them can mean losing access to your data.

Images, PDFs and diagrams

Squoosh is a free, open-source image compressor from Google Chrome Labs that runs entirely in your browser, so images are never uploaded; it handles one image at a time. TinyPNG compresses images online, often cutting file sizes by more than 80%, and its free web tool takes up to 20 images at a time, each up to 5 MB. Uploads are deleted within 48 hours. Smallpdf offers online tools to compress, convert, merge, split, edit and sign PDFs, with a daily download limit on the free plan.

tldraw is a free online whiteboard that opens straight in the browser, with shapes, arrows, sticky notes and real-time sharing by link; saving boards long term needs an account. draw.io, also known as diagrams.net, is a free, open-source diagram editor for flowcharts, mind maps, network and UML diagrams that saves to your device, Google Drive, OneDrive or GitHub.

Focus and time tracking

ActivityWatch is a free, open-source time tracker that records which apps, window titles and websites you use without a timer, keeping the data on your own device. Clockify takes the manual route, with timers and logged hours across projects and clients, and a free plan with unlimited users and projects; invoicing and advanced approvals are paid.

Pomofocus is a simple online Pomodoro timer with tasks and estimates in one browser tab, with reports and integrations on the paid plan. myNoise offers tunable rain, cafe, white noise and other ambient sound generators for masking distractions. OneTab is a free browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that turns all your open tabs into a single list you can restore later.

Research

Zotero is a free reference manager that saves papers, articles and web pages from the browser, stores PDFs and notes in one library and creates citations in thousands of styles for Word, Google Docs and LibreOffice. Free cloud storage for PDFs is limited to 300 MB. The Internet Archive is a free, non-profit digital library of books, films, audio, software and images, and its Wayback Machine shows old versions of websites. Many of its books can only be borrowed for a limited time.

Open-source developer projects from GitHub

Ten free, open-source projects from GitHub were also added. DBX is a database client that connects to more than 100 databases from a single 25 MB app. Databasus is a self-hosted tool for scheduled PostgreSQL backups with point-in-time recovery and restore checks. Sync-in is a self-hosted platform for file storage, sharing and sync, Traceway combines logs, traces, metrics and session replay in one self-hosted observability tool, and Homelable draws a visual map of a homelab and monitors the status of each service.

For AI coding, Loop Engineering collects patterns, starter templates and CLI tools for running coding agents in repeatable loops, and Pi Subagents adds sub-agents and parallel workflows to the Pi coding agent. Claude Code: Everything You Need to Know is a free, text-based course on Anthropic's Claude Code across three levels, and UX/UI Agent Skills is a collection of design-system skills that guide Claude toward accessible, consistent interfaces. These are third-party projects provided as-is by their maintainers; self-hosted tools need you to run, update and back them up, so review each project's licence, code and security before installing.

These are only some of the tools added recently. Browse the full directory to filter by category, type, pricing and goal and find the right fit for your work.