SumizAI vs jotty·page

What jotty·page is

What jotty·page is

jotty·page (formerly known as rwMarkable) is a self-hosted checklist and notes app built with Next.js 14, open source under GitHub's fccview/jotty. The whole app deliberately avoids a database — data is kept as plain Markdown and JSON files in a single directory on the server, making it easy to back up, move, or inspect without administrative tools.

Key features

Checklists support drag-and-drop reordering, progress bars, and categories, handling both simple to-do lists and more elaborate projects with a Kanban view and time tracking. A WYSIWYG note editor built on the TipTap library supports full Markdown with syntax highlighting. Data security comes from OIDC authentication and optional PGP and xChaCha encryption, and sharing works both for other users on the same instance and through public links. Programmatic access via an authenticated REST API lets you integrate checklists and notes with other tools.

Who it's for

jotty·page appeals to people who already self-host other services (via Docker) and want to add a lightweight notes app to that stack without running and maintaining a separate database. Teams that value full control over their data — with no external cloud intermediary — will find a tool built exactly for that scenario.

Use cases

In practice, the app works well for managing task lists split into categories with progress tracking, building Kanban boards for smaller team projects on your own infrastructure, and keeping notes meant to later be read programmatically by another tool via the documented REST API.

Pricing and business model

The app is fully free and open source — the only cost is your own server infrastructure needed to host it (a VPS, a home server, a cloud container). No licensing fee or subscription of any kind sets it apart from commercial SaaS note-taking tools.

Limitations and what to watch for

No native mobile app means relying on the PWA (Progressive Web App) version installed from a browser — it works well, but doesn't fully replicate a native app experience with system-level notifications. Self-hosting also means you're responsible for backups, security updates, and server uptime, which you wouldn't have to worry about with a SaaS service.

AI notes saved as plain Markdown files

jotty·page has no built-in AI integration, but since notes are stored as plain Markdown files with no intervening database, pasting a fragment of an AI conversation as an ai notes entry and formatting it in the WYSIWYG editor takes a moment. Such an ai notes entry lands straight into the data directory on your own server, also accessible programmatically via the REST API if you want to build your own save automation.

The "no database" philosophy as a deliberate choice

The decision to keep everything as Markdown and JSON files in a single directory instead of a database makes migrating between servers easier — you simply copy the whole directory, with no exporting and importing data from a database engine. This approach echoes the philosophy of local, file-based notebooks, carried over into the world of a self-hosted web app.

What's worth checking before choosing

Before deploying, check the current Docker installation docs on GitHub and whether the PGP/xChaCha encryption features are stable in the latest release, if you plan to store sensitive notes on a shared server.

Bottom line

jotty·page is a lightweight, self-hosted checklist and notes app with no database, a REST API, and optional encryption, aimed at people already running their own Docker infrastructure. Anyone who wants ai notes from AI conversations to land in such an archive automatically without manual copying and API setup needs a tool built specifically for that workflow.

Comparison with SumizAI

jotty·page and SumizAI differ in hosting model and note content source. jotty·page is a self-hosted app for hand-written notes and checklists, requiring your own server. SumizAI is a desktop and mobile app where ai notes are generated automatically from a conversation with an AI model (one of seven providers, always on your own API key) and land as Markdown files in a vault — a plain folder on the user's own disk, with no server to run. Anyone who wants a self-hosted checklist tool with a REST API should pick jotty·page; anyone who wants these notes from AI conversations to appear automatically without administering a server will find SumizAI the better-fitting tool, at $1 a month after a 7-day trial with no card required.

That is our reading of the record. For AlternativeTo's own wording, see its page for jotty·page — the facts above were read on 2026-08-16.

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.

Every answer kept this way becomes one of these ai notes, ready to search again months later without hunting back through old chats.

Side by side

Where they differ

• AlternativeTo's description of jotty·page 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.
• jotty·page is open source (AGPL-3.0), and SumizAI is not. If reading the source is what decides it for you, that is a real argument for jotty·page. 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.
• 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.
• jotty·page can be self-hosted. SumizAI has nothing to host on the desktop — the vault is a folder on your machine — and if you want the model on your own hardware too, a local Ollama is one of the seven providers it speaks to.
• jotty·page also does tasks. SumizAI does not — no boards, no due dates, no projects. It files knowledge, not work.
• AlternativeTo lists no mobile version of jotty·page. SumizAI runs on macOS, Windows, iOS and Android.

Which one to pick