# Blinko

> AI-assisted card notes, self-hosted or on Blinko Cloud

Blinko is an AI-assisted note-taking app for capturing short thoughts and growing them into lasting notes. Quick captures, called Blinks, sit beside permanent Notes, and AI can expand or polish text and answer questions from what you have saved. It comes as a free open-source edition you host yourself and as Blinko Cloud, a hosted service with a free plan and paid plans that add storage and blog publishing features.

- **Category:** Note-Taking Apps
- **Made by:** Blinko
- **Website:** https://blinko.space
- **Runs on:** Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, Android
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 9, 2026

## Pricing

Blinko has a free plan. Paid plans start at $5.99 per month, billed monthly (Blinko Cloud Pro).

- **Pricing model:** Free plan
- **Free plan:** Blinko Cloud Free: 100 MB of managed storage, a personal blog, nested tags, folders and full-text search, with AI through your own API key. The self-hosted open-source edition is also free.
- **Free trial:** None listed.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Open Source (self-hosted) | $0 | The open-source edition on your own server. Storage is limited only by your infrastructure, and you manage updates, backups, security and AI providers. |
| Blinko Cloud Free | $0 | Hosted Blinko with 100 MB of managed storage, a personal blog, bring-your-own-key AI, nested tags, folders and full-text search. |
| Blinko Cloud Pro | $5.99 per month, billed monthly | 10 GB of managed storage, premium blog themes, a custom domain, no Blinko branding, the Blinko CLI, developer API and secure sharing. |
| Blinko Cloud Pro Plus | $10.99 per month, billed monthly | 25 GB of managed storage with everything in Pro, for larger note and attachment libraries. |

Read from https://blinko.space/en/pricing on Oct 9, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Blinko before buying.

## Key features

- **Blinks and Notes:** A Blink is a quick capture for short-lived thoughts and is archived automatically after a period. A Note is permanent, with rich formatting, and a Blink can be turned into one.
- **AI search and chat over your notes:** Retrieval-augmented search answers natural-language questions from your own notes, and a chat lets you ask what you recorded and follow up on a topic.
- **AI writing with your own provider:** Selected text can be expanded or polished, and AI can tag notes or process new ones automatically. Providers include OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, OpenRouter and local Ollama models.
- **Personal blog and share links:** On Blinko Cloud a note can be published to a personal blog. Share links can carry an expiry time and a password, and shared notes are read-only.
- **Self-hosting with Docker:** The open-source edition runs in Docker with a PostgreSQL database, so notes stay on your own server. S3 storage, webhooks, SSO and scheduled backups can be configured.
- **Apps and plugins:** Desktop apps add a quick-note window and a text-selection toolbar, the Android app accepts content shared from other apps, and a plugin marketplace adds extras.

## Good for

- Capturing short thoughts quickly and sorting them out later
- AI search over your own notes using your own API key
- Self-hosters who want their notes on their own server
- Publishing selected notes as a personal blog

## Worth knowing

- Blinko Cloud Free includes 100 MB of managed storage; Pro has 10 GB and Pro Plus 25 GB. Cloud plans are billed monthly.
- Custom domains, premium blog themes, the CLI, the developer API and secure sharing are listed under the paid Cloud plans.
- There is no iOS app yet (marked Coming soon), Android is an APK download and the desktop apps are described as preview builds.
- AI features need your own API key or a local model, and self-hosting leaves updates, backups and security to you.

## Works with

OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, DeepSeek, Ollama, OpenRouter, S3, WeChat

**Tags:** Open source, Self-hostable, Notes, Markdown, AI features, AI search, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Memos](https://toolgpa.com/tools/memos): Open-source, self-hosted timeline of short Markdown notes. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/blinko-vs-memos)
- [NoteGen](https://toolgpa.com/tools/notegen): Open-source Markdown notes app that organizes captures with AI. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/blinko-vs-notegen)
- [SiYuan](https://toolgpa.com/tools/siyuan): Open-source, local-first notes built on linked content blocks. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/blinko-vs-siyuan)
- [Trilium Notes](https://toolgpa.com/tools/trilium-notes): Free, open-source hierarchical notes for a personal knowledge base. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/blinko-vs-trilium-notes)
- [flatnotes](https://toolgpa.com/tools/flatnotes): Self-hosted notes web app on a flat folder of Markdown files. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/blinko-vs-flatnotes)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 9, 2026:

- https://blinko.space/en
- https://blinko.space/en/pricing
- https://blinko.space/en/open-source
- https://blinko.space/en/download
- https://blinko.space/terms-and-conditions
- https://docs.blinko.space/en/introduction
- https://docs.blinko.space/llms.txt
- https://docs.blinko.space/en/install.md
- https://docs.blinko.space/en/how-to-use/blinko-or-note.md
- https://docs.blinko.space/en/how-to-use/ai/ai-setting.md
- https://docs.blinko.space/en/how-to-use/share-your-note.md
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/blinko-space/blinko/main/README.md
- https://github.com/blinko-space/blinko
- https://github.com/blinkospace/blinko/releases/tag/1.8.8

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/blinko
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).