BurnPony vs Zero Note
Same species. Different proofs.
Two indie apps, one shared premise: information has a natural lifespan, and a note should stop existing when its job is done. Zero Note answers with more rules — views, time, even location. BurnPony answers with more proof: named primitives, published behavior, and a viewer you can read. Which trade is right depends on what you need to be able to check.
the short version
Zero Note for location rules and shipping today; BurnPony for crypto you can verify and copies that don't exist. Zero Note can lock a note to an address or a country and is already on the App Store. BurnPony specifies its entire construction — AES-256-GCM, HKDF, PBKDF2 at 600,000 iterations — keeps no local copy of note text anywhere, does receipts without collecting anyone's email, and ships an auditable single-file viewer.
At a glance.
| BurnPony | Zero Note | |
|---|---|---|
| Client-side encryption | Yes — AES-256-GCM, sealed on device | Yes — described as AES-based E2E |
| Crypto specification | Fully documented: HKDF-SHA256, PBKDF2 600k, nonce and tag sizes | Algorithm family named; construction not published |
| Verifiability | Viewer auditable via View Source; app and browser cross-verified with shared vectors | Not documented |
| Account model | None — no account exists for anyone | Anonymous account, no email or phone |
| Self-destruct by views | 1–100, ciphertext deleted atomically on the last view | Yes |
| Self-destruct by time | 1 hour–30 days | Duration or calendar date; 30-day maximum retention |
| Self-destruct by location | No | Yes — anywhere, an address, or a country |
| Passphrase second factor | Yes — PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256, 600,000 iterations | Not documented |
| Read confirmation | Generic push; recipient told before revealing; no emails collected | Email notification; recipient's email address stored to send it |
| Local copies after sending | None — Sent tab stores ID, token, settings; never note text | App keeps a local copy stored in iCloud (per its privacy policy) |
| Settings visible to the server | Auto-hide travels encrypted inside the note; server sees a counter and a clock | Access rules readable by design, including geofence coordinates — disclosed honestly |
| Existence privacy | Burned, expired, never-existed: identical responses | Not documented |
| Infrastructure | Solo-operated relay; custom server URL supported in Settings | Cloudflare-hosted storage |
| Source code | Viewer readable on every link today; repositories planned | No published repositories |
| Availability | In development — App Store submission being prepared | On the App Store now |
| Price | Free | Free with some paid features via Apple |
| Operator | One indie developer | One indie developer |
Honest tradeoffs.
Where Zero Note wins
- Location-locked notes. Locking a note to a specific address or country is a genuinely novel rule BurnPony simply doesn't have — for a key that should only open at the office, or instructions that only make sense on site, nothing here competes.
- It ships today. Zero Note is on the App Store right now; BurnPony is still in preparation. For the note you need to send this afternoon, availability is the whole argument.
- Calendar-date expiry. "Destroy on the 15th" is a cleaner fit than counting hours when a note's lifespan is tied to an event rather than a duration.
- An honest disclaimer culture. Zero Note states plainly that access rules are readable by its server so it can enforce them. That kind of candor is rarer than it should be, and it deserves credit.
Where BurnPony wins
- Crypto you can check, not just trust. "AES-based" names a family; BurnPony names the construction — AES-256-GCM, HKDF-SHA256, PBKDF2 at 600,000 iterations, exact nonce and tag sizes — and cross-verifies the app against the browser viewer with shared test vectors. The viewer that handles your key is readable on every note link.
- No copies, anywhere. After sending, BurnPony holds no note text on your phone, in iCloud, or anywhere else — the Sent tab keeps an ID, a token, and settings. A burn-after-reading note that also lives in a synced local copy has two lifespans; BurnPony's has one.
- Receipts without an address book. Read confirmation arrives as a content-free push, the recipient is told before they reveal, and no one's email address is collected or stored to make it work.
- A smaller readable surface. The server enforces exactly two things it can check without learning more — a view counter and a clock. Even the auto-hide setting travels encrypted inside the note, and dead links are indistinguishable from links that never existed.
- Your relay, if you want it. Settings accepts a custom server URL today, with the relay's source planned for release — a path off shared infrastructure that Zero Note's Cloudflare-hosted design doesn't offer.
The verdict.
- Choose Zero Note if location-locking is the feature you actually need, or the note has to go out today — it's a thoughtful indie tool that exists now.
- Choose BurnPony if your bar is verifiability: specified primitives, an auditable viewer, no lingering copies, and receipts that don't collect anyone's email.
- Either way, you're funding an independent developer instead of an ad model — a rare comparison where both answers respect the reader.
Try BurnPony
Free. No accounts, no tracking. In development — one email on launch day if you want it.