Show HN: textlog – A quiet, text-only microblogging platform, open-source, no JS

textlog is a Show HN project on the Hacker News front page: an open-source, text-only microblogging platform with no JavaScript. It positions itself as a quieter place for short notes—follow people and hashtags, join conversations, and avoid turning every thought into a performance.

The product is built around a small set of primitives: notes, people, hashtags, and conversations. Notes are capped at 280 characters so they stay quick to write and read, one thought at a time. The stack is intentionally minimal—no client-side JS—and the surface stays straightforward by design rather than accumulating feeds, ranking, or growth hooks.

For engineers and builders, the interesting constraint is what it refuses. There are no engagement tricks and no pressure to grow an audience. Public profiles and notes, free signup, and the ability to download or delete account data make the data lifecycle explicit. That is a useful reference when you are designing a social product and deciding how much of the usual feed machinery you actually need.

In market terms, textlog sits against platforms optimized for reach, media, and retention loops. It competes on calm and legibility instead of virality: words first, small by design, with optional donations rather than a growth-at-all-costs model. Community rules are plain—share what is yours, no harassment, abuse, spam, impersonation, or unlawful use—with moderation when content puts the community or the service at risk.

Watch whether the no-JS, open-source approach stays maintainable as conversations and follows scale, and whether the 280-character, hashtag-and-follow model is enough for people who want something quieter than mainstream microblogging without giving up public posting and export/delete control.