Butterfly
Linwood Butterfly provides an endless workspace for handwriting, sketching, annotating, taking notes, and organizing ideas.
About Butterfly
Butterfly is a note-taking and drawing tool built around an infinite canvas, where handwriting, sketching, annotation and diagramming can share one document. It can be used with a stylus, touch or mouse, and imported material such as camera photos, PDFs and SVGs can be combined with notes and exported in common formats.
Key features
- Infinite canvas for handwriting, sketching, annotating and organizing notes in one document
- Editable elements and strokes: move, resize, recolor and reorganize content after placing
- Imports camera photos, gallery images, PDFs and SVGs; exports in common formats
- Templates, packs, stamps, palettes and styles reusable across documents
- Tools include labels, shapes, polygons, rulers, grids, textures, stamps, laser pointer, presentation tools
- Optional WebDAV sync such as Nextcloud; offline by default with local documents
Best for: Visual thinkers who want to handwrite, sketch and annotate on an endless canvas across desktop, mobile and the browser.
Good for
- Works offline by default, with documents kept on the device unless the user saves them elsewhere
- Runs on Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and in browsers, with an iOS preview also available
- Documents use the documented .bfly and .tbfly formats, and the project states it is free and open source under GNU AGPL-3.0
Watch out for
- Collaboration is described as experimental and relies on Swamp or a self-hosted WebSocket server
- iOS is offered only as a preview
- The web app notes that Chromium-based browsers are recommended
Butterfly at a glance
- Website
- butterfly.linwood.dev
- Category
- Productivity › Notes & Knowledge Management
- Type
- Online tool
- Pricing
- Not confirmed. Check the site
- Platforms
- Web
- Open source
- Not stated
- Language
- English
- Last checked
- Oct 6, 2026 · Online when checked
- Listed
- Oct 5, 2026
Guides for Notes & Knowledge Management
Butterfly alternatives
Tools and sites you could use instead, ranked by how closely they match.
Butterfly supports handwritten note-taking, drawing, and organizing ideas in an open-source endless workspace.
Open source
24 alternatives
Trilium Notes is an open-source app for taking notes and organizing a personal knowledge base locally or through synchronization.
Xournal++ is open-source software for handwritten notes, sketching, and annotation.
Open Notebook provides a private workspace for learning, research, and organizing knowledge.
Handwriting, document annotation, diaries, and journals are among the features of Noteshelf note-taking app.
Tolaria organizes notes as Markdown files and describes itself as a second-brain app.
Free
20 alternativesPopular in Notes & Knowledge Management
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Butterfly FAQ
Does Butterfly need an internet connection?
No. Documents live on your device by default and offline work is supported; syncing and backup rely on optional WebDAV services such as Nextcloud.
Can several people work on the same document?
Experimental collaboration supports end-to-end encrypted sessions through Swamp or a WebSocket server you host yourself.
Which platforms can run Butterfly?
Android, Windows, macOS, Linux and browsers, with an iOS preview also available.
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