Every month, millions of professionals pay $5, $10, or $15 to keep their notes synchronized across devices. Evernote charges up to $14.99 monthly. Notion runs $10 per seat for teams. Apple’s iCloud, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive — they all want a recurring cut for what amounts to moving text files between computers. For years, this felt inevitable. The cost of convenience.
But a growing number of users are rejecting the premise entirely. They’re turning to free, open-source tools that synchronize notes across devices without routing data through anyone else’s servers — and without a subscription.
The tool at the center of this quiet revolt is called Syncthing.
How Syncthing Replaces the Cloud Without Replacing Convenience
Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program that connects devices directly, peer-to-peer. No central server. No account creation. No monthly fee. It’s open-source, available on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, and it encrypts data in transit using TLS. As MakeUseOf detailed in a recent guide, Syncthing can be paired with local-first note-taking applications like Obsidian or Joplin to create a fully functional, subscription-free note-syncing system that rivals — and in some respects surpasses — commercial alternatives.
The setup isn’t one-click simple. That’s the trade-off. Users install Syncthing on each device they want to sync, then pair those devices by exchanging unique device IDs. Once paired, they designate shared folders. Any file placed in a shared folder propagates to every connected device automatically. The synchronization happens over the local network when devices are nearby, or over the internet when they’re not, using relay servers only to establish the initial connection.
For note-taking, this means a user can write in Obsidian on a laptop, and within seconds, that note appears on a desktop at home or a tablet in another room. The notes live as plain Markdown files in a local folder. Syncthing watches that folder and pushes changes everywhere. No cloud intermediary stores the data. No company can read it, mine it, or lose it in a breach.
And it works. Remarkably well, according to users who’ve adopted the workflow.
The appeal goes beyond frugality. Privacy is a primary motivator. When notes sync through iCloud or Google Drive, they pass through servers controlled by companies with complex data-handling policies. Syncthing’s peer-to-peer architecture means the data never touches a third-party server in a stored state. For journalists protecting sources, lawyers handling privileged communications, or anyone who simply doesn’t want their personal thoughts sitting on someone else’s hardware, this matters.
There’s also the question of longevity. Cloud services shut down. They change pricing. They alter terms of service. Google alone has killed more than 250 products. When your notes depend on a service, your notes depend on that service’s continued existence and goodwill. With Syncthing and local Markdown files, the notes are just files. They’ll open in any text editor, on any operating system, decades from now.
Short version: your data stays yours.
The Broader Backlash Against Subscription Fatigue
This isn’t happening in isolation. Subscription fatigue has become a defining consumer grievance of the 2020s. Software that once cost a one-time fee now demands perpetual payment. Adobe Creative Suite became Creative Cloud. Microsoft Office became Microsoft 365. Even note-taking apps that started free — Evernote most notoriously — have progressively locked features behind paywalls.
The numbers tell the story. According to a 2024 survey by C+R Research, the average American spends $219 per month on subscriptions, and most underestimate their spending by a significant margin. Software subscriptions are a growing slice of that total. And consumers are pushing back. Evernote’s user base has contracted sharply since its aggressive monetization push, with many users migrating to Obsidian, Logseq, and other tools that store data locally.
Obsidian itself occupies an interesting position. The application is free for personal use. It stores everything as local Markdown files. But it offers its own sync service, Obsidian Sync, for $4 per month. It’s a good product. End-to-end encrypted, tightly integrated. But the fact that Obsidian uses plain files means users aren’t locked in. They can replace Obsidian Sync with Syncthing and lose nothing in terms of data portability. The company, to its credit, doesn’t fight this. Obsidian’s developers have openly acknowledged that users are free to sync however they choose.
Joplin, another popular open-source note application, follows a similar model — free software with an optional paid sync service called Joplin Cloud. But Joplin also supports synchronization via Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, or any WebDAV-compatible server. Pair it with Syncthing, and you’ve eliminated external dependencies entirely.
So why doesn’t everyone do this?
Complexity. The honest answer is that setting up Syncthing requires more technical confidence than tapping “Sign in with Google.” There’s a web-based interface to configure, device IDs to exchange, folder paths to set correctly. Conflict resolution — what happens when two devices edit the same file simultaneously — requires understanding how Syncthing handles versioning. It’s not difficult for someone comfortable with file systems and networking basics. But it’s a barrier for the average user who just wants their grocery list on both their phone and laptop.
There’s also the Android limitation. Syncthing’s primary Android app, Syncthing-Fork, works but requires the app to run in the background, which Android’s battery optimization aggressively tries to prevent. Users often need to manually exclude Syncthing from battery restrictions. On iOS, the situation is worse — there’s no official Syncthing client, though third-party options like Möbius Sync exist at a cost. Apple’s restrictions on background processes and direct peer-to-peer networking make a fully functional iOS implementation difficult.
This is the friction that keeps cloud subscriptions alive. Not superior technology. Convenience.
What Comes Next for Local-First Software
The local-first movement is gaining momentum well beyond note-taking. Projects like CRDTs (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) are providing the theoretical underpinning for applications that can sync without central servers while handling conflicts gracefully. Martin Kleppmann’s research at the University of Cambridge on local-first software principles has become something of a manifesto for developers building in this space. The core argument: users should own their data, software should work offline, and collaboration shouldn’t require a corporate intermediary.
We’re seeing this philosophy show up in new products. AnyType, an open-source Notion alternative, uses peer-to-peer sync by default. Standard Notes offers end-to-end encrypted note-taking with a self-hosting option. Even established players are feeling the pressure — Apple recently expanded the capabilities of its free iCloud tier, and Google increased free Drive storage for Workspace users.
The economics are shifting too. Cloud storage costs money to provide. Servers, bandwidth, maintenance, security — these aren’t free. Companies pass those costs to users through subscriptions, and the margins are substantial. When users discover they can get equivalent functionality by repurposing hardware they already own — a home computer running Syncthing acts as an always-available sync node — the value proposition of paid cloud sync becomes harder to justify.
Not impossible. Just harder.
For power users and privacy-conscious professionals, the Syncthing approach represents something genuinely compelling: a return to ownership. Your notes on your devices, synchronized on your terms, with no monthly tithe to a corporation that might one day decide your data is its data. The tools exist. They’re mature, well-maintained, and free.
The only cost is a little time spent setting things up. For a growing number of people, that’s a trade worth making.
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