Notepatra is a native C++/Rust code editor built from scratch for the AI era. It runs on Linux, macOS Apple Silicon, and Windows, has a ~9 MB bare native executable (stripped), supports 226 file types with 92 language lexers, and includes AI-powered formatters that fix broken JSON, HTML, and brackets via local Ollama, llama.cpp, LM Studio, or any OpenAI-compatible server — local by default, with optional cloud backends (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Azure, Ollama Cloud).

Is Notepatra free? Is there a paid version?

Notepatra is free forever and licensed under GPL-3.0. There is no paid version, no subscription, no enterprise upsell, no telemetry. The source code is open on GitHub.

How big is the Notepatra binary?

The bare Notepatra executable is ~9 MB stripped across every platform. Latest v0.1.67 download sizes: 3.2 MB Linux x64 tar.gz, 3.0 MB Linux ARM64 tar.gz, 26.6 MB macOS DMG (with bundled Qt), 39.9 MB Windows MSI / 32.0 MB NSIS / 36.5 MB portable zip (with bundled Qt + QScintilla DLLs). After Windows install the on-disk footprint is ~75-85 MB because the MSI extracts the bundled Qt5 DLLs and QScintilla DLL out of the compressed payload — that's normal for any Qt app installer. Linux installs stay tiny (~9 MB on disk) because Qt5 comes from your distro repo. Notepatra installs at 9–85 MB depending on platform.

Does Notepatra send my code to the cloud?

No. Notepatra is local-first. The AI features run on your own machine via your choice of Ollama, llama.cpp's llama-server (which loads any GGUF file directly), LM Studio, Jan, vLLM, KoboldCpp, text-generation-webui, or any OpenAI-compatible server you point it at. There is no telemetry, no analytics, no mandatory API key, no remote server, no phone-home. The only outbound network connections are: your chosen local AI backend (when you click an AI button), git push/pull (when you click those buttons), and the REST client tab (when you explicitly send a request).

How do I install Notepatra?

On Linux or macOS run: curl -fsSL https://notepatra.org/install.sh | sh — on Windows PowerShell run: irm https://notepatra.org/install.ps1 | iex. Both scripts auto-detect your OS, download the right binary, verify the SHA-256 checksum, and install. You can also download binaries directly from the GitHub Releases page.

How do I verify the Notepatra binary I downloaded is genuine?

Every release ships with three independent integrity checks: SHA-256 checksums (sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS), Sigstore cosign signatures (keyless OIDC, recorded in the public Rekor transparency log), and SLSA build provenance attestations (verifiable with gh attestation verify). Full instructions in SECURITY.md.

Notepatra was envisioned and is maintained by Prateek Singh, with much of the implementation written with Claude's help. Single-maintainer open-source project, free forever under GPL-3.0.

Notepatra — The Code Editor Built for the AI Era

Name: Notepatra
Availability: InStock
Author: Prateek Singh

Download v0.1.72

One-command install or direct download

Auto-detecting installer scripts, or pick your platform from GitHub Releases. No telemetry. No tracking. Just a binary.

🌐

Notepatra

DEFAULT

Local AI out of the box · cloud LLMs opt-in. Talk to Ollama / llama.cpp / LM Studio / self-hosted Ollama on the LAN by default. Paste an OpenAI / Anthropic / OpenRouter / Mistral / Azure URL in Settings if you want cloud — fully optional, no key required for local use.

Pick this if you want maximum flexibility — local first, with cloud available when you need a flagship model on a hard problem. Most users.

.tar.gz .deb .rpm .AppImage .dmg .msi .exe .zip

Get Notepatra v0.1.72 →

🔒

Notepatra Local AI

CLOUD-FREE

Physically cannot talk to any public LLM endpoint. api.openai.com · api.anthropic.com · openrouter.ai · api.mistral.ai · api.groq.com · everything else — refused at the network layer. Ollama / llama.cpp / LAN-hosted LLMs continue to work.

For regulated industries (finance, healthcare, legal, gov), data-sovereignty regions (EU GDPR, India RBI, China), air-gapped engineering networks. Built via -DNOTEPATRA_NO_CLOUD=ON — auditable, no setting to flip.

notepatra-local-ai_*_amd64.deb notepatra-local-ai_*_arm64.deb notepatra-local-ai-*.msi

Get Notepatra Local AI v0.1.72 →

Both flavors are local-first by default. The regular build adds optional cloud LLM URLs you paste in Settings; the Local AI build refuses them at the network layer for auditable compliance. notepatra --version tells you which flavor you have installed.

🐧

Linux x64

Binary · 3.2 MB .tar.gz

.tar.gz

🐧

Linux ARM64

aarch64 · Raspberry Pi 5 · 3.0 MB .tar.gz

.tar.gz

🍎

macOS Apple Silicon

M1 / M2 / M3 / M4 · 26.6 MB .dmg

.dmg

🪟

Windows x64

36.5 MB zip · 39.9 MB MSI · 32.0 MB setup.exe

.zip / .msi / .exe

💼 Portable .zip = most-downloaded format. Extract anywhere — USB stick, locked-down work laptop, cloud sync folder. Zero registry, zero admin. Ships with two one-click helpers: register-associations.bat adds Notepatra to Windows "Open with" for 28 file extensions (.txt .md .json .py .cpp .js .rs .go .sql .html .css and more), unregister-associations.bat undoes it. HKCU-only — never asks for admin.

Features

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

Built on QScintilla — a battle-tested Scintilla-based editor engine. Hot-path file I/O and search use Rust for memory safety on untrusted input.

🤖

AI Assistant (Ctrl+Shift+A) NEW

Local-first AI. Pick your runner: Ollama, llama.cpp (any GGUF), LM Studio, Jan, vLLM, or anything that speaks OpenAI's /v1/chat/completions. Explain · Find Bugs · Refactor · Write Tests · Fix JSON · Add Comments · Optimize · Translate. No mandatory API key, no telemetry. Default is local — your code stays on your machine. Cloud LLMs (OpenAI, OpenRouter, etc.) are opt-in if you point Notepatra at one.

🔎

Project Search (Ctrl+Shift+G) NEW

Recursive search across file names AND file contents, project-wide. Streams line by line so memory use stays flat regardless of file size — tested on 2 GB logs. Exact line:col coordinates, double-click a match to jump the caret to the exact character. Any text-based language. Skips binary files with a NUL-byte heuristic.

⚡

Rust-Powered Core

Memory-mapped file I/O. Aho-Corasick search. Myers diff. Tested on 2 GB files. The heavy lifting runs in compiled Rust — no garbage collector, no runtime.

🔄

Safe auto-update NEW

Click Download in the in-app "update available" dialog and the right artifact for your OS + architecture is fetched, SHA-256 verified against the release's SHA256SUMS, and handed to the native installer (MSI on Windows, DMG in Finder on macOS, file manager on Linux). Your current install is never touched by the updater — the OS installer does the swap under its own transactional rollback. Checksum mismatch, cancelled download, network drop, disk full — any failure leaves the running app exactly as it was.

📅

Insert Date / Time

Edit → Insert, or Ctrl+F5. Five formats: 2026-04-20 13:45, 2026-04-20, April 20, 2026, 13:45:09, ISO-8601. Saves keystrokes in logs, changelogs, meeting notes.

🖱

Clickable status bar

Click Language, Encoding, or EOL indicators in the status bar to pop the matching change-menu right where you clicked.

📂

Clean menu organization

Three clear menus — Tools (everything built-in: AI, Terminal, Compare, JSON/HTML/SQL, Git, REST, Bracket), Plugins (third-party extensions YOU add), Utilities (Hash, Measurement). No more guessing where a feature lives.

🔀

Compare with word-level diff

Side-by-side Scintilla diff. Green for added, red for deleted, amber for changed — with LCS-based word-level intra-line highlighting so you see the exact tokens that changed. Dark mode aware. Prev/Next navigation. Ignore whitespace, case, empty lines.

📁

Session Persistence

Close Notepatra, reopen tomorrow — same files, same cursors, same window size. Crash recovery saves unsaved work every 10 seconds.

👁

File Change Detection

Someone edits your file externally? Notepatra asks: reload or keep yours. Git gutter shows changed lines in green/yellow/red.

🎙

Macro Recording

Record keystrokes (Ctrl+Shift+R), playback (Ctrl+Shift+P), run multiple times, save to .macro files, replay tomorrow.

📑

226 File Types

92 language lexers — Python, Rust, Go, C/C++, Java, JS/TS, SQL, HTML, CSS, JSON, YAML, Markdown, Bash, Fortran, Verilog, MATLAB, LaTeX and more.

🎨

3 Themes + Color Tags

Light, Dark, Monokai. Color-tag any tab (7 colors + custom). Pastel green current line, double-click word highlight in orange.

🧩

Plugin System

Drop a .so/.dll/.dylib in the plugins folder. Simple C API — export 2 functions to create a plugin. JSON, HTML, SQL, Bracket tools all built in.

🔭

Find & Replace

In-document find / replace / extended mode (\n, \t, \xNN) / regex. Ctrl+F to find, Ctrl+H to replace. For searching across multiple files, use Project Search (Ctrl+Shift+G) at the top of this grid instead.

Editor	Size	AI Built-in	JSON Fixer	2 GB Files	Linux	Windows	Mac	Free
Notepatra	~9 MB	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
Notepad++	9 MB	✗	Plugin	✗	✗	✓	✗	✓
VS Code	300 MB	Extension	Extension	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓
Sublime Text	30 MB	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	$99
Kate	40 MB	✗	✗	✓	✓	✗	✗	✓
Vim	3 MB	✗	✗	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

Security

Verifiable. Local. Hands off your data.

No analytics, no telemetry. Network traffic only on explicit actions — AI request, git push/pull, REST client, update check. Every release is checksummed and cryptographically signed. Verify before you run.

🔐

SHA-256 checksums

Every release ships a SHA256SUMS file. install.sh and install.ps1 verify it automatically and refuse to install on mismatch. Latest checksums →

✍️

Cosign signatures (Sigstore)

Every artifact is signed via keyless OIDC signing tied to the official GitHub Actions workflow. The cert is recorded in the public Rekor transparency log — no trust in any single key.

📜

SLSA build provenance

Every binary carries a cryptographic attestation linking it to the exact git commit + workflow file + runner environment that built it. Verify with gh attestation verify.

🦀

Rust safety + cargo audit

Hot-path file I/O and search are written in Rust for memory safety on untrusted input; QScintilla (C++) handles lexers and editor rendering. CI runs cargo audit on every build to flag vulnerable dependencies.

🚫

Zero telemetry

No analytics, no error reporting, no phone-home. The only outbound connections are: localhost Ollama (when you use AI), git push/pull (when you click), and HTTP requests you explicitly send via the REST tab. Verifiable with strace.

📬

Responsible disclosure

Found a vulnerability? Use private vulnerability reporting. Full policy in SECURITY.md and /.well-known/security.txt.

Version History

Releases

Every release of Notepatra, from the very first one — transparent, append-only, no surprises. Note: v0.1.4 / v0.1.6 / v0.1.11 tags exist in git but were never published as GitHub Releases — their content was rolled forward into v0.1.5, v0.1.7, and v0.1.12 respectively to reduce release churn.

v0.1.72 LATEST

2026-05-11 · Enterprise installers + cloud-free notepatra-local-ai build. · Linux · macOS · Windows

📦 Fleet-grade installers for every Linux distro

.deb for Debian / Ubuntu / Mint / Pop!_OS (x64 + ARM64) — sudo apt install ./notepatra_0.1.72_amd64.deb drops the binary at /opt/notepatra/ with a /usr/bin/notepatra symlink, full hicolor icon set, .desktop registration, GTK / desktop-database trigger hooks.
.rpm for Fedora / RHEL / CentOS Stream / Rocky / Alma (x64 + ARM64) — sudo dnf install ./notepatra-0.1.72-1.x86_64.rpm. Bundles QScintilla 2.14.1 alongside the binary because Fedora's qscintilla-qt5 package exports a subtly different symbol set; the bundled copy means the same upstream binary runs uniformly across distros.
AppImage for Arch / openSUSE Tumbleweed / Manjaro / EndeavourOS / any glibc 2.38+ distro — chmod +x Notepatra-0.1.72-x86_64.AppImage and run. Linuxdeploy + linuxdeploy-plugin-qt bundle Qt5 + plugins; libGL stays a host dep (standard AppImage convention). Older glibc → use .deb / .rpm.
Windows MSI (already in v0.1.71) — msiexec /i notepatra-0.1.72.msi /quiet for SCCM / Intune push. macOS DMG — drag to /Applications; admins can sudo cp -R from a script.

🔒 `notepatra-local-ai` — by-construction cloud-free build

Compile-time flag -DNOTEPATRA_NO_CLOUD=ON produces a binary that physically refuses to talk to api.openai.com, api.anthropic.com, api.mistral.ai, openrouter.ai, generativelanguage.googleapis.com, api.groq.com, api.together.xyz, api.deepseek.com, api.cohere.com, api.x.ai, or any other public LLM endpoint. Three layers of defense: UI strips the cloud preset shortcuts + cloud-URL paste box, QNetworkAccessManager requests are gated by a 49-case unit-tested allowlist (NotepatraNetworkPolicy::isPrivateNetworkHost), QNetworkRequest refuses to fire if the host isn't loopback / RFC1918 / CGNAT-100.64/10 / IPv6-ULA fc00::/7 / .local / .lan / .internal / .intranet / .corp / .home.
Shipped as notepatra-local-ai_0.1.72_amd64.deb / _arm64.deb (Debian/Ubuntu) and notepatra-local-ai-0.1.72.msi (Windows, per-machine MSI to C:\Program Files\Notepatra Local AI\ with its own UpgradeCode). Ollama / llama.cpp / LM Studio / Jan / vLLM / self-hosted Ollama on the LAN — all continue to work.
For regulated industries — finance, healthcare, legal, government — and data-sovereignty regions (EU GDPR, India RBI, China). Auditors confirm via strings notepatra | grep -c openai.com = zero hits, or notepatra --version = Notepatra v0.1.72 (cloud-free / local-ai).

🧪 Validation

New unit test test_network_policy.cpp — 49 cases (every loopback / RFC1918 / CGNAT / IPv6-ULA range + every cloud LLM endpoint we know about + adversarial look-alikes like api.openai.com.evil.com and localhost.attacker.com). 28/28 ctest pass on both the regular and cloud-free build flavors.
Local Docker verification: .deb install on Ubuntu 24.04, .rpm install on Fedora 40, AppImage extract-and-run on bare Fedora — every artefact launches end-to-end with bundled QScintilla resolved via RPATH $ORIGIN/lib.

🔌 How it's wired

New module src/network_policy.{h,cpp} — pure helper isPrivateNetworkHost(QUrl) with no DNS lookups (name-based, TOCTOU-safe).
Gates inserted at every m_nam->get() / m_nam->post() call site in ollama.cpp via the NOTEPATRA_NO_CLOUD_GATE + NOTEPATRA_NO_CLOUD_OK macros (no-op in regular build, refuse-and-emit-error under NOTEPATRA_NO_CLOUD).
New build scripts installers/debian/build-deb.sh, installers/rpm/{notepatra.spec.in, build-rpm.sh}, installers/appimage/build-appimage.sh — usable standalone for downstream packagers.
installers/windows.wxs parameterized via <?ifdef NoCloud ?> — passing -dNoCloud to candle.exe flips ProductName, UpgradeCode, install dir, Add/Remove Programs entry to the Local AI variant.

Release page Full changelog Commits

v0.1.71 · 2026-05-11 · AI Interaction Log — audit every cloud + local LLM exchange (SQLite, WAL mode, 7-day rotation, credential scrubber). View on GitHub → v0.1.70 · 2026-05-11 · AI cleanup + Notepad++-style session persistence + Data Mode attachments visible. View on GitHub → v0.1.69 · 2026-05-10 · Critical fix — AI Coding / Data mode no longer locks tool buttons. View on GitHub → v0.1.68 · 2026-05-10 · AI dock auto-exits fullscreen on editor tab switches. View on GitHub → v0.1.67 · 2026-05-10 · AI Assistant: three independent per-mode conversations. View on GitHub → See every release on GitHub
Full version history from v0.1.0 onwards — release notes, signed artifacts, SHA-256 checksums, cosign signatures, SLSA build provenance.
github.com/singhpratech/notepatra/releases →

v0.2.0 — next milestone

LSP support · Plugin ecosystem · More outreach · Community feedback cycle

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Quick answers. For deeper docs see the README and SECURITY.md.

What is Notepatra?

Notepatra is a native code editor written from scratch in C++17 with a Rust core for hot paths (memory-mapped I/O, Aho-Corasick search, Myers diff, formatters). Runs on Linux x64 / ARM64, macOS Apple Silicon, and Windows x64 from a single codebase. ~9 MB bare executable, no Electron runtime, no telemetry, no mandatory account. Local-first AI is built in: pick from Ollama, llama.cpp, OpenRouter, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, or Ollama Cloud. As of v0.1.67: 226 file types · 92 language lexers, native DuckDB engine for the Data Analyst mode, agentic Coding Mode with read / list / search / write / apply_diff tools, Cursor-style Composer + Ctrl+I inline edit, multi-cursor, AI-driven git tools.

Is it really free? What's the catch?

No catch. GPL-3.0, no telemetry, no analytics, no API key, no enterprise tier, no subscription. Source on GitHub. The "catch" is that it's a one-person open-source project — no SLA, no warranty, no support contract. See the disclaimer in the footer.

How big is the binary?

The bare executable is ~9 MB stripped across every platform. Latest v0.1.67 download sizes: 3.2 MB Linux x64 tar.gz · 3.0 MB Linux ARM64 tar.gz · 26.6 MB macOS DMG · 39.9 MB Windows MSI / 32.0 MB NSIS / 36.5 MB portable zip. Installed on Windows the on-disk footprint grows to ~75-85 MB because the MSI extracts bundled Qt5 + QScintilla DLLs out of the compressed payload — normal for every Qt-based installer. Linux stays tiny (~9 MB on disk) because Qt is a system package; macOS and Windows bundle Qt + QScintilla DLLs for portability.

Does my code go to the cloud?

By default no — Notepatra is local-first. Pick a local AI backend (Ollama on localhost:11434, llama.cpp's llama-server, LM Studio, Jan, vLLM, KoboldCpp) and nothing leaves your machine. Cloud backends (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Ollama Cloud) are opt-in from the AI dock dropdown. Even when you opt in, the v0.1.55 credential scrubber strips API keys / tokens / private-key blocks from any code or chat content before it leaves the machine, and the privacy "Share file with AI" toggle (default OFF) controls whether the active editor file is even visible to the model. Verifiable with strace.

What languages does Notepatra highlight?

226 file types via 92 language lexers as of v0.1.67 — Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, C, C++, C#, Java, Kotlin, Rust, Go, Dart, Solidity, Zig, Vala, Hack, Julia, R, Protobuf, F#, HCL/Terraform, Thrift, GraphQL, GDScript, Nim, Cython, Mojo, Crystal, Elixir, Scala, Groovy, Apex, HTML, CSS, SQL (5 dialects), JSON, JSON5, YAML, TOML, Markdown, Bash, Fish, Nushell, Ruby, Perl, Lua, Fortran, Verilog, VHDL, MATLAB, LaTeX, BibTeX, Jinja, Liquid, Twig, Dockerfile, DotEnv, Gitignore, Pascal, CMake, Makefile, and more. Each lexer ships with comment / uncomment / block-comment syntax (Ctrl+Q / Ctrl+Shift+Q) and proper file-extension routing.

How do I verify a download is genuine?

Every release ships with SHA-256 checksums, cosign signatures (Sigstore + Rekor), and SLSA build provenance. The install scripts verify SHA-256 automatically and refuse to install on mismatch. Full guide in SECURITY.md.

Will it open big files?

Yes — up to 2 GB. The Rust core uses memory-mapped I/O (mmap2), so opening a 2 GB log file doesn't load the whole file into RAM (pages are faulted in lazily as you scroll). Files larger than 50 MB automatically disable syntax highlighting and auto-complete to keep things snappy.

Can I write plugins?

Yes. Drop a .so/.dylib/.dll in ~/.config/notepatra/plugins/. The plugin C API is two functions: notepatra_plugin_name() and notepatra_plugin_run(text, len). Example in the README.

Who built it and why?

Built by Prateek Singh, constructed with Claude. The short version: Linux and macOS deserved a first-class native code editor, and 2026 deserved one with AI built in — local-first by default, cross-platform from one codebase, ~9 MB stripped.

The code editor built for the AI era

Designed for people who write code.

Memory-mapped at every scale.

Private by design.

Built-in tools.