--- title: "SumizAI vs AS Notes" url: "https://sumizai.com/alternative-to/sumizai-alternative-to-as-notes.html" date: "2026-08-14T00:00:00+02:00" modified: "2026-08-14T00:00:00+02:00" description: "Looking for a AS Notes alternative? SumizAI and AS Notes side by side: price, licence, platforms and what each one actually does." tags: ["ai notes", "sumizai", "as-notes", "alternative to AS Notes"] --- # SumizAI vs AS Notes Looking for a AS Notes alternative? SumizAI and AS Notes side by side: price, licence, platforms and what each one actually does. ## What AS Notes is AS Notes is a VS Code extension (and compatible editors like Cursor, Windsurf, Antigravity) bringing a full personal knowledge management system (PKMS) directly into the environment where developers already spend most of their day. Instead of switching to a separate notepad app, the user stays in the same editor they write code in. The key feature is support for wiki-links in double brackets — you type `[[Page Name]]`, and AS Notes automatically resolves the reference globally, with no need to specify folder paths or file extensions. Renaming a file automatically updates every reference to it, with case-insensitive matching, page aliases, and support for subfolder links. The feature set includes a backlinks view, task management, journals, a Kanban board, Markdown editing tools, Mermaid and LaTeX support, and Jekyll/Hugo-style publishing — far more than a typical plain Markdown syntax-highlighting extension, bringing AS Notes functionally close to Obsidian, but embedded in a code editor instead of a separate app. Data stays local, as plain .md files in a folder the user controls — no cloud sync, no telemetry, no accounts. This "notes as files" approach means ai notes content stays readable and portable regardless of the extension's own future, similar to other local ai notes tools in this category. For developers keeping a project's technical log, architecture-decision documentation, or code-review notes right next to the code, AS Notes removes the context-switching between an editor and a separate notepad app — documentation and code live in the same place, with the same keyboard shortcuts and the same sidebar. Compatibility with Cursor and Windsurf (VS Code-based editors with an added AI coding layer) means AS Notes also reaches the growing community of developers using AI-assisted coding, tying project documentation to the same environment where AI helps write the code. Compared to dedicated PKM apps like Obsidian or Logseq, AS Notes has the advantage of integrating into a developer's existing work environment — no need to open a separate app to glance at notes, just switch a tab in the same VS Code window, cutting the friction of frequently switching between code and documentation. The limitation is that AS Notes only really makes sense for people already working in VS Code or compatible editors — for someone who doesn't write code daily and just wants a private ai notes, installing an entire code editor just to get a wikilink notepad would be overkill compared to simpler, standalone apps. Support for Mermaid (diagrams as text) and LaTeX (math formulas) makes AS Notes suitable for technical documentation needing more than plain text — a systems architect can draw a data-flow diagram right inside a note without switching to a separate diagramming tool, and a mathematician or data scientist can write a formula in the same place as the rest of the documentation. Jekyll/Hugo-style publishing means the same ai notes content, originally written as private project documentation, can be published as a technical blog or documentation site with no rewriting into a different format — a real time saver for teams maintaining both internal notes and public documentation of the same product. In short, AS Notes is a clever extension bringing a full these notes system with wiki-links directly into VS Code — a great option for developers wanting to keep documentation next to code, but niche for people outside that work environment. **Key facts** - Price: Freemium - License: Open Source ## What SumizAI is A note-taking application built around a conversation with an AI model. You ask a question, the answer streams back, and the answers worth keeping become Markdown notes — filed into a vault that is a folder on your own disk. A vault is a directory holding `base.md`, a generated table of contents up to six levels deep, and a `notes/` folder with one `.md` file per note. Before a note is written it is checked against the ones already there, so the fourth note about the same idea gets merged instead of added. Links between notes are ordinary Markdown links to files that exist. The model is never ours: you bring your own API key to one of seven providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, a local Ollama or your own server — and pay that provider directly. A question sends the table of contents plus at most five relevant notes within a 24,000-character budget, and the app shows you which five it used. ## Where they differ - AlternativeTo's description of AS Notes does not mention an AI model. That is the whole starting point in SumizAI: you have a conversation with a model on your own API key, and the answers worth keeping become notes without you filing them. - AS Notes is open source, and SumizAI is not. If reading the source is what decides it for you, that is a real argument for AS Notes. The guarantee SumizAI offers instead is structural rather than legal: the notes are Markdown files in a folder you chose, so they open in any editor whether or not the application is running. - AS Notes is freemium: there is a free tier and a paid one, and the line between them is the thing to read before committing. SumizAI has one plan at a dollar a month, so there is no feature held back for a higher tier — and an unpaid account still opens and exports every vault it already has. - Both keep Markdown, which makes moving between them mostly a matter of copying files. In SumizAI a vault is a directory holding `base.md` — a generated table of contents — and a `notes/` folder with one `.md` file per note. - AlternativeTo lists no mobile version of AS Notes. SumizAI runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android. Full side-by-side comparison table and pricing: [https://sumizai.com/alternative-to/sumizai-alternative-to-as-notes.html](https://sumizai.com/alternative-to/sumizai-alternative-to-as-notes.html)