"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But devs paint their pictures on code."
- Leopold Stokowski (almost!)
Small, useful tools for creative problem-solving, with accessible interfaces and efficient design. No installation required. Respects your personal data. No subscriptions. No tracking. GDPR-compliant, developed in Germany and hosted on European infrastructure.
Your handy assistant to speed up your job application flow with optional AI-features.
Create & manage applications easily and intuitively and use optional AI features to speed up your job application process. Track application status, get job specific company information with salary suggestions, your personal candidate-fit estimation and create cover letters in your own writing style with the one-click AI in many supported languages. Runs directly in your browser with locally stored data and optional encrypted cloud backup functionality. Try without signup with full core functionality. Creatively crafted with productivity in mind.
Job-Application Manager / Track progress / Organise efficiently / Useful metrics & stats / No subscription required!Additional AI features powered by French Mistral AI with Painting Software Credits!
Purchase Credits to power AI features in Painting Software Tools
Painting Software tools are free to use and work perfectly fine without AI features — but if you want to speed up your workflow, the optional AI comes in handy. AI features consume Credits which can be topped up here. All credit usage is logged transparently so you always know exactly what each action costs. (AI features in PJAT | Painting Job Application Tool include: Cover Letter generation, Job-candidate fit analysis, auto-tagging with keywords.)
Apps and programs designed by Painting Software have a specific purpose and are focused around one solution to one single problem, making them efficient tools for real productivity.
With a focus on productivity
Easy to use with a clear focus on usability and practicality. Without distraction. Without predatory ads or tracking.
Crafted in the EU with GDPR and transparency in mind and trust by design.
Painting Software in Germany with a focus on honouring the European GDPR to protect your data. Source code always available so you can see for yourself what happens with your data.
Distributed under ELv2-licence, encouraging openness.
The Elastic License v2 (ELv2) is a very simple, non-copyleft license, allowing for the right to "use, copy, distribute, make available, and prepare derivative works of the software” and has only three high-level limitations. You cannot:
(1) Provide the products to others as a managed service
(2) Circumvent the license key functionality or remove/obscure features protected by license keys
(3) Remove or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices
Own your data.
Your data is yours! Painting Software apps run fully local in your browser's indexedDB and support local data backups, as well as anonymized & encrypted cloud backups, if you want an extra layer of redundancy and cross-device sync.
No forced subscription models - Try anonymously.
No forced subscription locking essential features behind a pay-wall. Painting Software apps are fully functional for unrestricted use. Costs only apply for AI usage via Credit top-ups since these are ongoing costs that occur for Painting Software. You are free to use any app without AI features free of charge and without sign-up.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Painting Software?
Painting Software is my way to share tools with the world that I deem useful for myself and my own productivity. It is created out of dissatisfaction with corporate apps that try to take you on a user journey, track your data and are designed to become "a vital part of your life", and chain you to their services via subscription models. 'One problem, one solution' is the mantra of Painting Software, trying to bring back the days when software was simply a tool to fulfil a singular purpose, solving a specific problem.
Who is behind Painting Software?
Hi, I am Niko, and I am passionate about many things, including software development. Having worked as a freelance web designer for many years, I know my ways around databases, GUIs, UX-design and anything else related to modern web frameworks. Now I also caught up with software development, fusing my pre-existing web skills with modern agentic coding aka "vibe coding". This allows me to focus on the utility of applications and find creative solutions to problems that have been "bugging" me for a while. Knowing enough about software architecture to get to where I want, Painting Software is my way of expressing my creative side in code.
Why Painting Software?
"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence" is attributed to Leopold Stokowski, the renowned British conductor.
Software is painted with code, emphasizing a personal note that is added to each tool, putting human-centric design in the focus, honouring the values of data-privacy, putting purpose and utility first and solving one problem at a time instead of interfering with you life.
Painting Software is not trying to become your buddy or your indispensable all-purpose tool. It is software aimed at solving a specific problem for a specific one-time price, allowing you to finally own your software again.
No subscription models, no unusable trial versions filled with ads, no data harvesting or selling off your data to third parties, no gamification. Just honest software with source code available under the ELv2 licence with transparency in mind and trust by design.
Is Painting Software affiliated with Elasticsearch B.V, inventor of the ELv2 licence?
No, Painting Software is an independent small scale software studio which is in no way affiliated with or sponsored by Elasticsearch B.V, the creator of the Elastic Licence. The ELv2 licence is intended to fill a gap between open and transparent software design whilst protection of the IP and allows for monetisation of software via protection of the software's licence mechanisms, which must not be circumvented or removed, even if the software is altered.
What is an ELv2 Licence?
From the official Elastic FAQ found on the elstic.co website:
The Elastic License 2.0 applies to our distribution and the source code of all of the free and paid features of Elasticsearch and Kibana. Our goal with ELv2 is to be as permissive as possible, while protecting against abuse. The license allows the free right to use, modify, create derivative works, and redistribute, with three simple limitations:
You may not provide the products to others as a managed service
You may not circumvent the license key functionality or remove/obscure features protected by license keys
You may not remove or obscure any licensing, copyright, or other notices
We tried to minimize the limitations just to those that protect our products and brand from abuse.
https://www.elastic.co/licensing/elastic-license/faq
Why (only) source code available? Why not open-source?
Open source is a strictly defined term and only applicable to software under specific licences, like GPL, MIT or GNU. With great power comes great responsibility which is why open-source software embodies legal agreements that grant users the freedom to use, modify, and distribute software under defined terms. They ensure software remains open and accessible while protecting contributors' rights.
Why is Painting Software not open-source, but source code available?
Whilst we acknowledge the value and importance of open source, it also opens the door to freely modify and repackage the software which makes it harder to monetize. Painting Software values transparency which is why the source code is made public for everyone to verify the legitimacy of Painting Software applications. The ELv2 licence allows users to redistribute our apps, without removing the existing licensing protection and mechanisms. This ensures a fair balance between transparent software design and honouring the licensing agreements.
Why are Painting Software tools not available on GitHub?
In line with focusing on a European stack, Painting Software chose to self-host via Forgejo, a lightweight, open source forge, owned and governed by the non-profit organization Codeberg e.V., based in Berlin, Germany.
Why is Painting Software not available on Codeberg.org (yet)?
While Codeberg.org remains the most established European software development platform and a viable alternative to GitHub especially when it comes to ethical aspects, like transparency, avoiding tracking and honouring user sovereignty and data-protection, it is strictly focused on open-source, non-commercial software, only. While Painting Software repos have their source-code available, Painting Software tools are not open-source as defined by the various open-source licences out there (GNU, MIT, Apache etc.). Painting Software tools are licenced under the Elastic Licence 2 (ELv2).
Why is there no cookie consent form on paintingsilence.eu?
Because Painting Software and its website do not track your personal data and so do not require cookies for you to visit or use this website. No GA, no tracking pixels, no third-party embeds.
