TidGi-Desktop is a free, MPL-2.0 licensed, cross-platform desktop note-taking and knowledge-management application built on TiddlyWiki and running as an Electron app, aimed at people who want their notes stored locally as files they own, backed up to Git automatically, and optionally published as a blog.

What it is

TidGi-Desktop is a desktop application, written in TypeScript and shipped for Linux and macOS, that wraps nodejs-TiddlyWiki in an Electron shell. It ships with a large set of plugins taken from the TiddlyWiki community, so a user gets a wiki-grade notebook with backlinks, knowledge-graph style linking, GTD workflows, and fragment knowledge management without assembling a plugin stack by hand. The project describes itself as an all-in-one, local-first, privacy-minded tool, and it exposes a REST API so that external applications, including web clippers and Anki, can talk to the running wiki.

The concrete problem it solves is the operational overhead of running TiddlyWiki on Node.js as a personal knowledge base. Instead of managing a Node.js server, a plugin directory, a Git repository, and a publishing pipeline separately, TidGi-Desktop presents all of that as a desktop app with workspaces. A user can load a Node.js wiki, create a local wiki, or clone an online wiki from the interface, and the app handles the Git-backed storage layer underneath. It also replaces the manual step of exporting a wiki for publication, since a wiki can be deployed as a blog directly. The README summarises this as a customizable personal knowledge base with Git as backup manager and blogging platform.

Key capabilities

• Runs workspaces as nodejs-TiddlyWiki instances, with separate entry points to load a Node.js wiki, create a local wiki, or clone an online wiki.
• Performs automatic Git backup of wiki content, so note history lives in a repository rather than in an application database.
• Deploys a wiki as a blog or website, with an online demo blog page published through the Tiddlywiki-NodeJS-Github-Template.
• Exposes a REST API for web clipping, allowing pages from the browser to be captured into the wiki.
• Connects to Anki for spaced-repetition workflows, listed both in the project description and in the anki topic.
• Includes a community plugin library browser, so plugins from the wider TiddlyWiki community can be added without manual file placement.
• Supports interactive code inside TiddlyWiki through zx-script, shown in the README's screen recording.

Who users are and how they use it

• Individuals running a personal knowledge base on a laptop, where notes stay as local files and a Git remote provides version history and off-machine backup.
• Writers and bloggers who keep a wiki as the source of truth and publish it as a static blog through the Node.js and GitHub template.
• Researchers and students who clip web pages via the REST API and push material into Anki for review.
• macOS users, who install the build from GitHub Releases and must move the app into the Applications folder and clear the quarantine attribute before it will launch.
• Teams or individuals who want to clone an existing online wiki and continue working on it locally, using the clone-workspace flow.

Getting started

Download the latest build from the GitHub Releases page and run the desktop application, then create a local wiki, load a Node.js wiki, or clone an online wiki as a workspace. On macOS the app is not signed, so it must be dragged into the Applications folder and xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "tidgi.app" run before it will open.

How it compares

The facts do not list paid products that TidGi-Desktop replaces, so no direct licence or cost comparison can be drawn. Its registry topics instead place it alongside TiddlyWiki itself and next to Anki-style spaced repetition and Evernote-style note capture, with TiddlyWiki being the engine it is built on rather than a competing product.

When to use it — and when not to

A self-hoster takes on the app itself, a Git remote for backup, and whichever plugins are enabled, but no separate database, object storage, or SMTP service is mentioned. The macOS build is unsigned, which makes first launch awkward for anyone unwilling to bypass Gatekeeper, and the project states that it is under active development, so it suits users comfortable with iteration rather than those who need a finished, stable-only tool. Anyone who wants a hosted, browser-only note service with no local files should look elsewhere.

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "tidgi.app"

yay -S tidgi-desktop-bin

brew install --cask tidgi