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Decomposer

Comparison to Essay

I recommend you check out Essay. It is the only tool in the same space as Decomposer. A tool for improving writing, not word processing.

Most existing tools, are either:

  • word processors (with other unrelated features), like Google Docs or Obsidian
  • attempting to be productivity tools, like Notion or Workflowy

Essay is the main tool I’ve seen built by people who primarily care about improving writing.

That being said, Essay and Decomposer come from different worlds. Essay has a university writing feel, and is a great tool for students. I built Decomposer for my own professional use as a software engineer.

Similarities:

  • Focus on rewriting
  • Essay’s rewrite tool and Decomposer’s Reading Mode are cut from the same cloth. Both encourage you to edit rather than produce.
    • You can’t navigate to the next point with the arrow keys in Essay’s rewrite tool.
  • Focus on improving your writing over formatting

Differences:

  • Essay is collaborative.
    • This is something I decided I don’t care about for Decomposer.
  • I subscribe to Steph Ango’s File over App, so Decomposer works off of local markdown files. Essay is cloud-based, like Notion.
    • This means Essay can easily sync between devices. In Decomposer you need to set up file syncing with iCloud or another cloud service.
    • They can support collaborative editing.
    • File > app has its benefits though. Files are easily exposable to agents. Essay would need to build an API and an MCP server.
  • Essay separates outlining, producing, rewriting, and reordering. Decomposer is more integrated.
    • You could argue this is a strength of Essay, because the brain does separate production and editing.
    • Decomposer does this to an extent with Reading Mode.
  • Decomposer is obsessively hierarchical, what I call a “points editor”. Essay is a block editor, like Notion, with additional tools that help with writing.
    • For example, reordering hierarchical lists is not well supported in Essay.
  • The focus in Essay is the document. In Decomposer, the focus is the points tree, and the document is a side effect.
  • When not showing type indicators or viewing markdown, the point’s view is closer to a bulleted list editor, like Roam Research or Workflowy. Essay is very sentence focused, less list focused.
    • For example, in Decomposer, you can focus a point.
  • Essay does not support code blocks.
    • This would make writing a technical spec in Essay difficult.