February 15, 2026
Click to /undefined
Show HN: Lightwave – Real-time notes app, 3.5 years of hand-rolled JavaScript
Solo-built notes app hits HN — and “/undefined” steals the show
TLDR: A solo developer opened a pre-release test of Lightwave, a desktop-only notes app with live collaboration and export. The crowd swarmed with a sign-up link to “/undefined” and split over the no-React brag, name confusion with a classic 3D tool, and comparisons to Obsidian.
Three and a half years of solo coding led to Lightwave, a desktop-only notes app promising a text‑editor feel, real‑time collaboration, and full data export. The pre-release stress test invited HN to break it—and they did.
Minutes in, the mood was “click, meet chaos”: users say the “Create Account” button dumps them at /undefined, with a deadpan “doesnt work” reply becoming the accidental slogan. Another instant dealbreaker: “Can’t triple click and drag to highlight words… I’m out.” First impressions? Brutal.
Then came the naming jokes: veterans did a double take at “Lightwave,” a title long tied to a famous 3D program, sparking brand‑confusion memes. Meanwhile, the Framework Wars flared: the maker touts hand‑rolled JavaScript (no React), but others begged—skip the flex, show the value.
Obsidian loyalists jumped in: how does this stack up to the popular plain‑text notes app? Supporters praised paste‑Markdown‑to‑blocks, live cursors, and clean exports, while skeptics flagged desktop‑only and missing accessibility as red flags for a paid product.
Drama score: high. The dev expected bugs and is shipping fixes live, but HN’s verdict is simple: ambitious and promising—yet one /undefined away from going viral for the wrong reason. Come for minimal editor dreams, stay for the comment‑section heat.
Key Points
- •Lightwave is a desktop-only real-time notes app in a pre-release stress test and will be a paid product.
- •The app aims to feel like a text editor initially while supporting structured documents and a hierarchical file manager.
- •Tech stack: Laravel, MySQL, Redis; client uses hand-written JavaScript with minimal jQuery and IndexedDB for local persistence.
- •Real-time collaboration uses HTTP/2 POST for resilient ops and WebSockets via Laravel Reverb for live cursors, presence, and edits.
- •Features include Markdown↔block conversion, LaTeX math, code blocks with syntax highlighting, full exports (Markdown/JSON/attachments), and full undo/redo with cursor restoration.