# Substrate Systems > Substrate Systems OÜ is a solo-founded Estonian software company building durable systems infrastructure. The company operates under the brand "Substrate" at substratesystems.io. Software infrastructure for durable systems. No lock-in; the website discloses aggregate analytics, while Endstate's local app has no telemetry. Substrate builds tools for long-horizon problems — software that prioritizes structural integrity, determinism, and longevity over velocity. The company's engineering philosophy: systems precede products, constraints enable clarity, foundations compound. Founded by Hugo Ander Kivi. Registered in Estonia as Substrate Systems OÜ. ## Products - [Endstate](https://substratesystems.io/endstate): Free, open-source Windows app that sets up a new PC fast. It scans your current machine for installed apps (via winget) and their settings, saves everything to a single portable file you control, then reinstalls the apps and restores settings on a fresh Windows install in minutes. Local-first, no account, no telemetry. The local product is free forever on as many machines as you like. Optional paid service: Endstate Cloud, encrypted managed backup (€4/mo or €40/yr). Endstate Cloud protects the application list and supported non-secret settings captured by Endstate; it is not personal-file backup. Supporting the project is separate and voluntary — one-time contributions unlock nothing. Download: https://substratesystems.io/download - [Endstate provisioning engine (GitHub)](https://github.com/Artexis10/endstate): Open-source Go CLI that handles app detection, installation, and settings backup/restore on Windows via winget, with optional Chocolatey lanes. Apache 2.0 license. The engine is the canonical implementation and the durable core of Endstate; the desktop app is a thin presentation layer over it. - [Endstate GUI (GitHub)](https://github.com/Artexis10/endstate-gui): Desktop application built with Tauri (React + Rust). Open source (Apache 2.0). - [Exomem](https://substratesystems.io/exomem): Open-source, MCP-native long-term memory layer for AI agents (Claude, Codex, Cursor) over a Markdown and Obsidian vault you own. Hybrid keyword + vector retrieval, local OCR/ASR/PDF/Office/image (CLIP) indexing, human review queues, and matching CLI + REST surfaces. Install: `pip install exomem`. Source: https://github.com/Artexis10/exomem - [Q](https://substratesystems.io/q): Source-grounded AI for content libraries — a multi-tenant platform that turns a creator or company's content library (video, podcasts, documents, PDFs) into a branded, searchable AI knowledge base with citations back to the source. Semantic search across transcripts and documents, custom domain, subscriber authentication. Proprietary and closed source, unlike Endstate and Exomem. Early access is operator-led: no self-serve signup and no published price list — contact hello@useq.ai. Product site: https://useq.ai ## About - [Why Endstate was built](https://substratesystems.io/endstate/why): The origin story — the problem of recreating a Windows environment from scratch, why existing tools (Ninite, winget alone, Chocolatey) don't solve the full capture-and-restore problem, and how Endstate addresses it. - [Proof of work — Hugo Ander Kivi](https://substratesystems.io/work): Contract-based LLM governance for AI-augmented teams; selected work and writing. - [Supported apps](https://substratesystems.io/endstate/apps): The live list of Windows apps Endstate has settings modules for, generated from the open-source engine repository so it stays current as modules are added. - [The complete guide to setting up a new Windows PC](https://substratesystems.io/blog/new-windows-pc-setup-guide): The pillar guide — reinstalling apps, bringing settings across, handling the Microsoft Store gap, and why the paid migration tools are not necessary. - [How to transfer programs from one computer to another](https://substratesystems.io/blog/transfer-programs-to-another-computer): Installed Windows programs cannot be copied between machines, and the paid tools that promise it work by transplanting registry state. Capture what is installed plus its settings, then reinstall cleanly. - [How to restore Windows apps and settings after reinstalling Windows](https://substratesystems.io/blog/restore-windows-apps-and-settings-after-reinstall): Rebuilding selected apps and supported settings from a profile captured before the reinstall — including what Endstate does not restore, and how it differs from Windows Backup, System Restore and disk images. - [How to reinstall all your apps with winget (and what it misses)](https://substratesystems.io/blog/reinstall-all-apps-with-winget): How winget export/import actually works, and the apps and settings it quietly leaves behind. - [Governance as compression](https://substratesystems.io/blog/governance-as-compression): A controlled three-condition experiment on contracts and skills for AI-augmented codebases — method, conditions, and results. - [How Exomem benchmarks memory systems](https://substratesystems.io/exomem/benchmarks): The fairness rules Exomem commits to before publishing any comparative benchmark number — competitor-authored configuration, guest posture on the competitor's own harness, per-knob provenance, disclosed glue, and independent adversarial review before publication. Published ahead of results: the July 2026 head-to-head against Basic Memory was withdrawn in full after an independent review found defects in both directions, and no replacement comparison has been published. - [Exomem vs claude-mem](https://substratesystems.io/blog/exomem-vs-claude-mem): claude-mem captures and replays session activity from a local SQLite/Chroma store; Exomem stores curated conclusions as Markdown in a vault you own. Both are open source and agent-agnostic — the difference is where the data lives and who curates it. - [Writing](https://substratesystems.io/blog): Field notes on durable infrastructure, LLM governance, and building foundational systems solo. - [Terms, Privacy & Refunds](https://substratesystems.io/terms): Endstate's local app has no telemetry; website analytics are disclosed separately. Contact: founder@substratesystems.io. - [Support Endstate](https://substratesystems.io/endstate/supporters): The people who fund free, open setup, and how to contribute. One-time contributions of $10, $29, or $89 through GitHub Sponsors. Supporting is voluntary and unlocks nothing. - [Sponsor an Endstate integration](https://substratesystems.io/endstate/sponsor-an-integration): Fund deeper migration support for a specific Windows application — settings capture and restore, version handling, package-identity edge cases, testing, and documentation. Priced by quotation. ## Endstate technical details - Detects apps installed via traditional installers (EXE/MSI) and Microsoft Store; uses winget under the hood. - 48 apps are sandbox-validated for automated installation (including VS Code, Git, OBS Studio, Blender, Obsidian, Discord, KeePassXC). - Settings backup for 300+ apps across categories: editors and IDEs (VS Code, JetBrains, Neovim), terminals, creative tools (Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Ableton Live), media players, emulators, note-taking apps (Obsidian, Logseq), and many more. The list is open source and growing. - Settings backup is always opt-in, never automatic. - Every settings restore creates a backup first — one-click revert. - App installs use standard Windows installers with UAC prompts — nothing installs silently. - Scanning and saving a setup works offline; restoring apps needs internet to download installers. The local product never phones home. - Setup files are stored as plain files you control — no hidden databases, no cloud dependency.