With a deliberately minimalist design philosophy and zero database dependencies, DumbPad delivers a self-hosted notepad that stores notes as plain text files with real-time auto-saving every 10 seconds and keyboard-shortcut manual saves. The Node.js Express backend serves a vanilla JavaScript frontend that supports multiple named notepads with direct URL linking and shareable links for instant access to specific notes. The split-view editor displays markdown source on the left and rendered preview on the right with a draggable resize handle, while the full preview mode renders complete markdown with GitHub-style alert blocks for Note, Tip, Important, Warning, and Caution callouts, extended table formatting, fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting via highlight.js covering approximately 180 programming languages, collapsible details sections, and checklist support. Fuzzy search matches across both filenames and file contents for fast navigation across large collections. Optional PIN protection secures access with configurable 4 to 10 digit codes, constant-time comparison to prevent timing attacks, brute force lockout after 5 failed attempts with 15-minute cooldown, and IP-based tracking. The Docker container runs as non-root UID 1000 by default with multi-architecture support, CORS origin restrictions for reverse proxy deployments, and persistent data volumes. Notes can be downloaded as text or markdown files, printed with auto-expanded collapsible sections, and imported by placing text files directly into the data directory. On RepoCloud, deploy DumbPad on a dedicated VPS with Docker, root SSH access, and complete control over your note-taking infrastructure, all under the GPL-3.0 license.