Logseq alternative

Local files and backlinks, without the outline.

Logseq is an outliner: everything is a bullet, and that is the point. If you would rather write documents than blocks, TypeFire gives you the same local markdown and the same backlinks, plus a global hotkey over every app.
Download free for MacSee what $18 adds7 day Pro trial, no card required.

Free text expander, clipboard manager and markdown notes. $18 once for unlimited clips, notes sync and AI prompts.

Why people switch

Why people move from Logseq

The specific reasons people give for switching.

Documents, not bullets

Logseq makes every line a block, which suits daily journalling and interstitial notes and fights you when you want a written page. TypeFire notes are ordinary markdown documents.

Files stay files

Both store markdown locally, which is why Logseq users chose it. TypeFire adds nothing proprietary on top: no block IDs threaded through your text and no database that has to agree with the folder.

Reach a note from any app

Control Command Shift K searches your whole vault from on top of whatever you are in and pastes into the document you are already writing.

It opens an Obsidian vault too

Point it at any folder of markdown, in place, with no import.

A text expander and clipboard manager

Both included and both working across the whole Mac, including inside a note.

A stable, shipping app

Logseq's database rewrite has been a long transition for its users. TypeFire's notes are plain files today with no migration pending.

Side by side

TypeFire compared with Logseq

Prices and capabilities as of August 2026.

 TypeFireLogseq
StructureDocumentsOutliner, block-based
StoragePlain .md filesMarkdown with block IDs
BacklinksYesYes, block-level
Daily notesYes, your conventionYes, core to the model
Global hotkey over other appsYesNo
Text expander built inYesNo
Open sourceNoYes
PriceFree, Pro $18 onceFree
Trade-offs

Where Logseq is genuinely better

Three things Logseq does better. If any of them is your deciding factor, use Logseq.

Block-level references are genuinely powerful

Embedding and referencing individual blocks across a graph is something document-based apps cannot match, and for people who think in outlines it is the whole reason to use Logseq.

It is open source and cross-platform

Free, auditable, and available on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS and Android. TypeFire is a closed-source Mac app.

Queries

Logseq's query language turns a vault into a live database. TypeFire has search, not queries.

What TypeFire adds

What TypeFire adds

Not available in Logseq at any price.

Prose without blocks

Write a page as a page, with no bullet wrapping every line.

A global hotkey

Notes on top of every app, pasted where you are typing.

A text expander

Abbreviations that expand anywhere, including inside a note.

A clipboard manager with OCR

Everything you copied, searchable by the words inside screenshots.

Clips and snippets, connected

Turn anything you copy into something you type

Right-click a clip, choose Save as snippet, give it an abbreviation. The thing you copied once becomes something you type three characters to get, forever. The same conversions run across all three surfaces: a clip becomes a note, and a note you keep rewriting becomes a snippet. Clipboard managers have no snippet engine, text expanders do not watch your clipboard, and no note app has either, which is why the loop only closes here.

  1. 01

    Copy something

    It lands in Clips alongside everything else you copied today.

  2. 02

    Save as snippet

    It leaves your rolling history and enters your permanent library.

  3. 03

    Give it a trigger

    Type inv from then on and never look it up again.

What gets captured

A clipboard manager you can tell what to ignore

A clipboard manager sees everything you copy. Until 4.0 the only control over that was a password-manager exclusion you could not see. There are three now, none of them gated, and the limits of the strongest one are stated rather than buried.

Turn image capture off

One switch. Text keeps being captured and pictures stop. Images you have already saved are kept rather than deleted, which is not what most people expect a privacy toggle to do, so it is worth saying.

Name apps to skip

Add any application and TypeFire ignores what you copy in it. Choose from the apps it has already seen, with clip counts, or browse to any app on your Mac. Each app gets one of three settings: allow it, block images only, or block everything you copy there. The middle one is what most people want for a work tool, keeping the text and losing the screenshots.

The password managers, now visible

TypeFire has always ignored password managers. That list is in Settings now, twenty-three apps including 1Password, Bitwarden, KeePassXC, Dashlane and Apple Passwords, blocked by bundle ID in code rather than by a setting you have to find. It shows which of them you have installed, and any one can be overridden.

Encrypted database, owner-only files

Clips are stored in an encrypted SQLite database on your Mac. The key is generated on your machine and kept in the macOS Keychain. Image files sit alongside the database with owner-only permissions.

Secrets expire in minutes

Card numbers and high-entropy strings are detected and deleted after five minutes by default, adjustable in Settings. Everything else follows the retention you choose.

An on-device AI option

Apple Intelligence and local models through Ollama or LM Studio run entirely on your machine. If you pick Claude, OpenAI, or Gemini instead, text goes to that provider directly; TypeFire operates no server in that path.

Where blocking by app stops being a guarantee

macOS does not tell an application which other application wrote to the clipboard. TypeFire matches on the app that was in front at the time, plus any app that identifies itself using the standard convention. That covers the overwhelming majority of real cases and it is not absolute. The protection that does not depend on a guess is the concealed-content marker: password managers mark what they copy, and TypeFire never stores it whatever else is set.

The app list also covers what you copy, not screenshots you save as a file. A PNG on your desktop records nothing about what was on screen, so TypeFire matches those to an app where it can and skips them when it does. It is right in the ordinary case and it is not a promise: to keep saved screenshots out entirely, turn off Save screenshots to Clips.

What it costs

Eighteen dollars. Once.

TypeFire Pro is a single payment that unlocks unlimited clips, Selection Prompts, Prompt Chains, notes sync and note version history. There is no subscription and no per-seat pricing.

TypeFire$18 once

Free tier, then one payment

ClipBook$9.99

No free tier at all

Clibo$14.99

One time

Supaste$29

No free tier

CopyMagic$39.99

One time

Paste$89.99

Lifetime, or $3.99/mo

TextExpander$40/yr

Subscription, forever

Two months of Paste, or all of TypeFire.

Moving from Logseq

Still not answered?

Obsidian is the closest in capability and keeps local markdown with a large plugin ecosystem.

TypeFire is the alternative if you want local markdown documents rather than an outliner, with wikilinks and backlinks, plus a global hotkey that reaches your notes from inside any other app on a Mac.

Logseq is built around the daily note and its block model is designed for that flow, so it does journalling better.

TypeFire supports daily notes and detects the date convention your vault already uses, but it treats them as ordinary documents rather than as the centre of the system.

It can open the markdown files, since Logseq stores them locally.

The pages will be readable and editable, but Logseq's block IDs and properties will appear as ordinary text because TypeFire has no block model. It is better suited to a vault you intend to keep as documents.

No. Logseq is open source and TypeFire is not.

What TypeFire offers instead is that your data is not locked in regardless: notes are plain markdown files in a folder you chose, so leaving costs you nothing.

Local files, written as documents.

Backlinks and daily notes without wrapping every line in a bullet, one keystroke from every app on your Mac.

Download free for MacSee what $18 adds7 day Pro trial, no card required.

Free text expander, clipboard manager and markdown notes. $18 once for unlimited clips, notes sync and AI prompts.

your clips your snippets