Lightwave – Real-time notes app, 3.5 years of hand-rolled JavaScript

Name: Lightwave – Real-time notes app, 3.5 years of hand-rolled JavaScript
Availability: InStock
Author: jv22222

by jv22222·Feb 15, 2026·52 points·37 comments

Visit Project View on HN

AI Analysis

●●SolidWizardryShip ItDark Horse

3.5 years hand-rolled JS avoiding frameworks, but notes+tasks space is saturated.

Strengths

•Genuinely impressive no-framework approach: hand-rolled JS, minimal jQuery, smart real-time hybrid (HTTP/2 + WebSockets).
•Solo builder with rare discipline—stayed focused on simplicity-first DX instead of feature bloat.
•Clear origin story (text files → structured tool) suggests real problem-solving, not solution searching.

Weaknesses

•Desktop-only severely limits addressability; mobile and web access are table stakes for productivity tools.
•Crowded category: Notion, Obsidian, Logseq, Linear, and dozens of real-time collab tools already own this space.
•No visible differentiation beyond engineering choice (no-framework); feature set reads as notes + tasks + projects (standard).

Post Description

Hi HN!

I've been building this solo for about three and a half years. I kept trying every new project/notes tool (Notion, Asana, Trello, etc.) and always ended up back in a plain text file. I wanted something that felt like a text editor on first touch but could grow into real structure when you needed it.

https://lightwave.so (desktop only)

The tech stack is Laravel, MySQL, Redis, and hand-rolled JavaScript on the client. No frameworks like React/Vue/etc. ~270 lines of jQuery (out of 80k+ total LOC) for a few legacy DOM utilities, plus IndexedDB for local persistence. Real-time collaboration uses a hybrid approach: HTTP/2 POST for resilient ops + WebSockets via Laravel Reverb for live cursors, presence, and edits.

This is a pre-release stress test, not a launch. Lightwave will be a paid product. Right now I'm opening it up because no amount of solo testing replicates getting punched in the mouth by real traffic.

The link above has a button to create a test account in 1 click.

Known rough edges: the cursor and selection system are built from scratch (like VS Code, not a contenteditable wrapper), so there's a lot of surface area. Some keyboard shortcuts may be missing. Desktop only, accessibility not yet implemented. I'm shipping fixes in real time.

There's a "Submit Bug or Feedback" button inside the app if something breaks. Happy to answer any questions about the architecture, or anything else.

Some highlights:

- Paste markdown in, get native blocks. Copy blocks out, get markdown back.

- Hierarchical document, structure. Hierarchichal file manager.

- Live collab with shared cursors, selection, and presence.

- Code blocks with syntax highlighting. LaTeX math blocks.

- Full data export: markdown, JSON, and attachments. No lock-in.

- Full undo/redo with cursor restoration.