I’m a writer and solo developer. Over the last few years, I kept noticing the same thing: Whenever I sat down to write - essays, notes, drafts - the tools I used slowly pulled me away from writing and into everything else (folders, stats, formatting, metrics). Eventually, I found myself spending more time in the interface than on the words.
So I built featureless - a very small web app with just this:
- A single title field - One writing surface - Autosave - Clear, Undo, Upgrade, and Logout - No folders, no formatting buttons, no embeds, no word count
The goal isn’t to replace Notion, Ulysses, Obsidian, Word, Google Docs or other writing interfaces. It’s to offer a place where there’s nothing else to do but write, finish, and move on. Once you’re done, you can copy-paste the finished work into your preferred tool to polish or publish it.
It’s a web app, so anyone can try it directly in the browser: https://featureless.app
There’s a free tier with a short expiry window, and an optional paid plan if you want to keep a draft around longer. The idea is to introduce just enough constraint to encourage finishing.
I’d really appreciate any feedback. Happy to answer questions.
Cheers, Manoj
I made it account-based mainly because the writing is autosaved and tied to a single surface, and I wanted people to be able to come back to it later without exporting or managing files.
That said, I completely get the hesitation. A no-account “scratchpad” mode is something I’ve thought about, and feedback like this helps me decide what to build next. I will get to work on this and let you know when finished :) Appreciate you calling it out.