Why I replaced a 3MB "Burn-after-reading" tool with my own 30KB Phoenix engine

Hi Dev.to! 👋 I've always been a fan of "burn after reading" tools like Privnote, but recently I noticed how bloated they have become. One popular open-source alternative I used was pulling in a 3MB Tailwind CDN script on every page load, just to style a simple text area! So, I spent my weekend building SmoldPaper v2.0.0 "Phoenix" . The Goal: Extreme Performance & Autonomy I wanted a tool that is: Zero-Knowledge: Encryption happens locally (AES-GCM 256-bit). Fast: Pre-compiled styles (29KB) instead of runtime engines. Independent: Zero external calls. No CDNs. No tracking. Tech Stack Frontend: React (compiled to static HTML/JS). Backend: A single PHP file with SQLite (WAL mode enabled). Security: Strict SQL DELETE commands for physical shredding. I managed to shrink the total size by 100x while making it significantly faster and easier to self-host. Check out the code here: github.com/0xSmold/smoldpaper Live Demo: smoldpaper.org I'd love to hear your thoughts on the architecture or the