Pagium is a local-first desktop notebook where every note is a plain HTML file on your disk. No database. No proprietary format. No cloud. The page is the element.
No proprietary format. No database locking up your words. Pagium writes one .html file per note, directly to your chosen folder — the same place you'd keep a photo. Open them in any browser. Grep them from the terminal. Ship them with rsync. The app is just a lens.
Pagium uses a custom HTML element — <pagium-link> — so references between notes round-trip through the parser without loss. No fragile markdown tokens, no regex-brittle square brackets. Linked notes are indexed immediately by a Rust file-watcher; backlinks update before you let go of the mouse.
A Rust backend indexes every note via SQLite FTS5 — the same engine that powers Firefox's address bar. Cold start under 400 ms. Search matches update as you type. The index lives beside your vault as a single file, and it's regenerable on demand if you ever lose it.
Plain HTML is the longest-lived format on earth. Your notes will open in every browser that ever existed, and every browser that ever will. No database schema will migrate under you. No cloud provider will raise prices or change hands. No proprietary format will drift out of support six years from now. When the app that made them is gone, your notes will still be on your disk, exactly where you left them. Outlasts the app that made it.
Littera incisa in saxo — the letter cut in stone.
Free. No account. No telemetry. One signed .dmg, 4.8 megabytes, Apple Silicon only for now. Windows and Linux builds will follow once the format spec is frozen.
Pagium-0.2.0-arm64.dmg · SHA-256 verified