Alternatives
If the app you tried wasn't the shape you needed.
Most people go looking for an alternative because the tool asked for maintenance they never kept up. These pages start from that, honestly.
Each one ends with the cases where the original is still the better choice.
- mymind alternativesIf you love the idea of saving without filing, but want it to live on your own machine.
- Raindrop alternativesMost people don't need better bookmarks. They need to find the thing again.
- Eagle alternativesIf the asset library became a second job, the answer may not be a better library.
- Obsidian alternativesA vault only remembers what you had time to write.
- Heptabase alternativesSometimes you don't need a canvas. You need the thing you saved.
- Fabric alternativesIf you didn't want another workspace, you wanted your Mac to remember.
Shelf V3 is out now
Shelf V3 is the current build. Shelf does not use automatic updates, so download the latest build here and install it over your current version.
This is intentional. Shelf is built around a local-first, privacy-focused philosophy. An automatic updater requires additional background processes, network connections, update infrastructure, and another system with permission to modify the app. We prefer to keep Shelf’s network footprint and background activity as small as possible.
Manual updates keep the process explicit: Shelf only checks the internet when a feature actually needs it, and you decide when a new version is downloaded and installed.