ChatGPT 4.5 just dropped as the new preview release, promising better deep research and creative content generation. So, I put it to the test - alongside 4o. I asked both models the exact same thing:

“Write a story about the open-source app Nomie by Brandon Corbin.”

No extra context. No special prompts. Just that. Safe to say… 4o absolutely killed it. Check out the results and tell me what you think. Who’s the real winner here?

4.5

Nomie began in 2014 as an experiment by Brandon Corbin, a designer and developer who loved tinkering with personal data but was frustrated by existing life-tracking apps. Brandon envisioned a personal, intuitive tracker—one without the clutter, complexity, or invasive practices of traditional apps.

Originally launched under his creative entity, Happy Data, Nomie aimed to empower users to privately track aspects of their lives—from moods and habits to health and productivity metrics. Unlike other apps hungry for data, Nomie championed privacy: your data belonged to you, stored locally or synced securely only if you chose.

As Nomie evolved, Brandon released it fully open source in 2019, inviting the community to collaborate, adapt, and expand its capabilities. This decision made Nomie not just an app, but a movement—users now had the freedom to customize and extend it according to their unique needs, spawning a passionate, diverse community.

Despite its loyal following, Nomie faced challenges. Maintaining and supporting an open-source project required effort, but its community grew, sharing modifications, supporting one another, and keeping the original vision alive: user-owned data, private tracking, and tools that genuinely helped people understand themselves better.

Nomie still lives on today as a symbol of Brandon’s vision for technology that respects its users, proving that design can be human-centered without sacrificing privacy or usability.

4o

Alright, let’s talk about Nomie—the open-source life tracker that came straight from the mind of Brandon Corbin.

The Birth of Nomie (2014)

Back in 2014, Brandon launched Nomie under Happy Data. It started as a simple but powerful life-tracking app designed for people who wanted to collect and analyze their own data without handing it over to big corporations. The idea was that you should be able to track anything—moods, habits, medications, workouts, caffeine intake—without your data being stored on some random server where it could be exploited.

At its core, Nomie was built on privacy, simplicity, and flexibility. It wasn’t just about tracking for the sake of it; it was about helping people identify patterns, improve their lives, and make decisions based on real personal data.

The Nomie Experience

Nomie allowed users to create custom trackers for anything they wanted. Feeling stressed? Tap a button. Drank a coffee? Log it. Over time, this data turned into insights—trends, correlations, and a better understanding of what was driving behaviors.

Unlike other tracking apps that required sign-ups and stored everything in the cloud, Nomie was built to be completely private. Users could store their data locally or on their own storage solutions, like CouchDB, which was pretty rare for an app of its kind. It was about your data being yours—not locked behind some subscription or analytics-driven business model.

The Open-Source Evolution

Brandon made Nomie open source, which meant anyone could tweak, improve, or even self-host it. This move reinforced the idea that life tracking should be for the people, by the people, not another avenue for corporate data mining.

As an open-source project, Nomie gained a loyal community of users who appreciated its privacy-first approach. It became one of the first real life tracker applications that wasn’t tied to a walled garden, attracting indie developers, quantified-self enthusiasts, and privacy advocates.

The Challenges & The Sunset

Of course, as with any independent project, keeping Nomie running and evolving was a massive undertaking. While people loved it, life tracking isn’t exactly a cash cow, and maintaining an app—especially one as flexible and feature-rich as Nomie—takes time and effort.

At some point, it became clear that continuing to develop Nomie at scale wasn’t sustainable. Eventually, Brandon had to step away from active development, but not before leaving behind a powerful open-source foundation that people could still build on.

The Legacy of Nomie

Even though Nomie is no longer actively developed, its DNA lives on. The core ideas—privacy-first tracking, full control over personal data, and user-driven customization—are still influencing other tracking apps today.

For Brandon, Nomie was more than just an app. It was an experiment in giving people the tools to understand themselves better without selling their data in the process. It was ahead of its time, offering something that mainstream apps still struggle to deliver—a truly user-controlled experience.

Would Nomie make a comeback? Who knows. But one thing’s for sure: it left a mark on the quantified-self space and showed that life tracking can be personal, private, and open.

So who won?