Any recommendations for a self hosted note taking app that runs on everything with a screen and is designed for multi device usage?
Also a modern, powerful and puristic UI would be a must have to compete with Keep.
I am looking for this app every now and then but am always disappointed by the choices.
I recently tried Joplin on Android, but was very dissatisfied with the usabilty.
The FOSS self hosted alternatives for smart home and porn are better than the commercial ones, can’t be that hard for notes, can it?
I want this sooooo bad.
Mind sharing what were your issues with Joplin?
My only issue is that it does not have any widgets on Android. So, I use Nextcloud Notes when I need that. But Joplin is actually great. You can self host a joplin server or sync using a Nextcloud server. It supports advanced markdown and I like the UI as well.
You can try Bookstack, but it will work on a web browser only. Another option is Obsidian, but I think only the apps are FOSS, the backend is not.
Right, obsidian didn’t appeal to me since it’s proprietary.
I probably will look into setting up a Joplin server and maybe write a frontend for it. Also didn’t try frontend options on PC yet.
Until now I only tried the Android app and while it looked quite mature, I didn’t get quite the UX from it I was anticipating.
Some things that bothered me:
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Creating a note requires 2 clicks, 1 should be fine.I want to start writing and decide whether its a todo later.
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Tag management. In Keep #tags are parsed from text automatically. Although there is a conflict with markdown syntax, having to issue 3 clicks to add a tag seems bothersome
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Tags are not shown in the main menu, but are another view.
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Didn’t figure out what notebooks are supposed to be, but i guess some kind of directory system. Don’t see the point when having a tag system. In the end they are too prominent in the UI.
But the synchronization options and markdown capabilities are a big plus. mardown is actually a feature missing in keep.
Obsidian is just a glorified markdown editor and there are some open source plugins for sync that you can self host if you want!
I’m a Joplin contributor and if you think the android app is halfway decent, that’s a win ahahaha. The desktop apps are what makes it a superstar though, with all the plugins and community. The mobile apps have been slowly modernizing but it’s real basic
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If you like obsidian but want a FOSS alternative, you might want to try out emacs org-mode and org-roam.
Here is an example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyhPmypHDEw
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=AyhPmypHDEw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I haven’t used vim in a while, so not sure. But you can use vim key bindings in emacs with evil-mode.
Org-mode can also be exported into markdown.
Markdown is cool since it’s used in a lot of places. But org-mode has so many more features and can be a drop in replacement in most cases.
I like Joplin too, and I use it when I can instead of Keep. It supports a pretty good range of synchronization mechanisms. But it doesn’t have the collaboration capability of Keep, so when I’m doing shared shopping lists or to do lists, I still end up using Keep.
I think Joplin is the best too, but I wish they will rewrite their app using Tauri or flutter for better performance and native app integration. Feature wise it is the best one that is FOSS.
Obsidian isn’t FOSS at all, sadly.
Though, they’re not the data-hungry kind of proprietary, or use some proprietary format. It’s basically just a really fancy markdown editor with plugin support. No telemetry, no accounts, and sync can be self-hosted.
What about Obsidian?
I actually stumbled upon it, but even though they have an active github account and there is an Arch Linux package, the software is proprietary. So I would rather patch the FOSS alternatives to my desire.
Logseq is pretty similar to Obsidian, and it’s FOSS. It’s still really young, but I’ve enjoyed using it more than Obsidian for my personal note taking style. It’s block-based and focused on daily journals, so instead of folders of individual notes the tags/references become interlinked pages. It’s been cool to see my daily logs become a web of concepts. Syncing is a new function they’re adding for supporters, but it can be done with Syncthing if you’re nasty.
It’s definitely a different way of note taking than Keep or Joplin and maybe not for everyone, but I hope I’m at least doing it justice and piqued someone’s curiosity!
I was going to recommend Logseq as well. I use the git plug-in on laptops and Working Copy (git on iOS) and some automations to sync it on mobile.
I looked into the git plugin and Working Copy, but the app price pushed me to support the Logseq team. I’m totally cool paying for apps, though $25 isn’t a trivial cost for an experiment, and I just figured I could put that money toward the development of the app I want versus a third party workaround, for lack of a better word.
I do appreciate that it works with git though, and I’m tempted to try it out just for a fun weekend project.
Are there any plugins you’d recommend for Logseq?
I’ve had success with Standard Notes personally. I’ve just used the basic default server, but I know you can self host it. Best of luck!!
I second Standard Notes. My focus is very geared towards privacy and security and Standard Notes excels at that as well.
Oh, I didn’t realize it was open source from the look of the website. But it actually is! And it’s active. https://github.com/standardnotes/app
I will check it out.
Automattic, who owns Wordpress, also owns Standard Notes.
Do you have a receipt for that?
Oops, I got confused with Simplenote, guess it’s a new recommendation then.
Gotcha, thanks for the clarification
Hmm, latest commit 7 years ago… It was also not easy to find the “upstream” repo, the link on the website 404s. https://github.com/cognirel/Quillpad-Server
I didn’t even know there was a standalone server, the app doesn’t even seem to support it anymore, just Nextcloud.
It’s here:
+1 for Quillpad 🌞
Anything wrong with Nextcloud Notes?
I guess it does a job, but will lack some features like tagging I am accustomed to from keep. Also I would need to maintain a whole nextcloud instance for it.
It has “categories”. Not sure if thats the same thing
I replaced keep with nextcloud notes many years ago
I’m really enjoying Otterwiki. Everything is saved as markdown, attachments are next to the markdown files in a folder, and version control is integrated with a git repo. Everything lives in a directory and the application runs from a docker container.
It’s the perfect amount of simplicity and is really just a UI on top of fully portable standard tech.
I’ve been using Trilium (https://github.com/zadam/trilium). There are desktop clients, no mobile clients. However the web interface works well enough for me that I don’t mind. The notes update in near-realtime when you make edits through the web app on multiple machines (assuming internet connectivity of course).
If you’re already self-hosting NextCloud you might want to look NextCloud Notes as well.
For the record, I also found that turtl is FOSS and seems to have a decent UI. I will give it a try.
In another comment you complained about the latest commit being made 7 years ago. Just a heads up, this project also seems pretty abandoned.
Did you try it?
Obsidian! Getting it to use cloud synced folders is a little tricky but it is a fabulous little program.
Also a big fan of Obsidian!
For syncing, one option is to use syncthing.
I know someone (whose geek creds are admittedly well beyond mine) who is also a fan. He uses GitHub to sync his notes.
Seconding Obsidian - it’s not FOSS, but the files are just markdown, nothing special, so you’re not locked in. Self hosting is real easy, you just have to Sync the files, and everything follows. I use syncthing between my laptop and phone and am having a good time with it.
Whoops, should have noticed your endorsement of syncthing before posting a comment mentioning this.
While Obsidian does save to individual files, the Markdown they use seems to be a superset of everyday Markdown. Eg, being able to use callouts (eg, Note, Warning, Info, etc) and embedded linking of notes.
The automatic backlinks are fantastic. And I’ve discovered that if I rename a note, all links to that note get updated as well. So no need to worry about orphaning pages.
I’ve added a handful of plugins as well. Off the top of my head, one is a dynamic table of contents (for that page), another helps to compose/edit Markdown tables.
Available but not FOSS. Gotta watch the license if you use it for any work.
I’m curious what licensing issues you would run into with obsidian?
Not a huge one, but it is only free for personal and non-profit use. “If your notes contain content directly related to work projects or processes for a greater-than-one-person company, then you require a commercial license.”
Since it is on flathub and they don’t really nag you, I am sure there are people who aren’t really aware.
Good to know thanks for the info. I’ll have to have a bit of a dig myself.
Obsidian is so so good.
I don’t even mind to pay for their sync service to support them. You can even encrypt your vault (notebook) with your own key.
That’s a fantasy I’m afraid. Just use Keep.
Why’s that? Keep looks and feels like a pretty basic note taking app, I don’t even see any of the usual google “secret sauce” that would make it better, smarter, or more embedded… what is it about keep that you find inimitable?
Of all the open source note apps I tried over a year ago, they didn’t seem that great. I’m also not interested in self hosting.
I like that Keep let’s you quickly create lists, let’s you add images, you can markup images, you can pin notes, search is fast and it all backs up to the cloud seamelessy. And I can result access it on any device.
In general I think there’s a lot to be said for Google services. Drive is great, put anything in there and have it everywhere and easily share.
Photos is indispensable because it’s so tig byhtly integrated with Android: take a photo and instantly it’s backed up to the cloud. No worry about losing my phone because my memories will be in the cloud.
I use Calendar all the time to manage events and reminders and it works perfectly. Also syncs to my calendar on Mint perfectly. It’s fast, easy to use, let’s you get in and out.
Google Messages now uses RCS which is great, is designed very well, and you can also send and receive messages from the web if you want. Plus it integrates nicely with Phone, Meet and Contacts.
It’s really hard to beat. And this is all free, although I pay €20 a year for the larger storage plan.
You can replicate this in Nextcloud but then you need to self host, set up incoming open ports, sorry about being ddoss’d or hacked, have either a large HDD or external HDD which may fail at any time. And it won’t integrate with Android as well.
I get people’s concern with privacy but I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people make out and end up throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I think you got lost because self-hosting is very much the point of this community :)
The Keep features you enumerated are pretty rudimentary, and none of that requires the sheer engineering power of a Google to be delivered securely and effectively. Take something like quillpad for instance, it shares a lot of UI paradigms with Keep, but expands in every direction to make the note taking experience and keeping them organized better. So indeed, Google Apps as a captive ecosystem is hard to beat, but resisting the urge to put all your eggs in their basket has some enormous perks which people with experience value a lot.
I’m a big fan of Logseq. I use Syncthing to sync a folder between my desktop and phone and it works great. Tagging, everything is in markdown, and it’s easy to navigate around.
Is there any mobile app for it?
Yeah, it’s on the Apple app store, and the Android version is available directly from their GitHub release page as an APK, or on F-Droid.
I use a basic markdown editor on android called Markor. Is Logseq the same? Or is it more than that?
Definitely more. It’s geared to note taking, with hashtags, wiki-like linking, and loads of other features. The main page is here.
i made the same migration from markor (files in a folder) to logseq. there’s a lot to be gained - always-preview alone is a game changer - but on mobile the visibility of the keyboard can be fiddly. once in a while you’ll feel like you’re in vi, it has such a mind of its own. but i’m not planning to go back
…ssh and vim?
+1
Lol
what about emacs?
I use orgzly on android, Emacs on desktop. Syncthing to sync the files.
Editing a file with vim though ssh on mobile seems like a pain.
I’ve done it a fair bit and it’s actually pretty painless. If you know how to use vim you save a ton of keystrokes, which makes a big difference on mobile.
I don’t believe this for a single second
I have been using anytype.io for a few months and love it. Best thing is it’s “local first” so stored on your own devices, just synched online.
What type of file uses? MD?
Yes MD can be used or just enter text into their pro forma objects
Notesnook, whenever they release self hosting.
Nextcloud and Quillpad is decent.
whenever they release self hosting.
Are there any plans? I just got their 70% off on subscription and I like it, but it would be great if there’d be a self hosted server.
Self hosting is currently in progress
This is great. And I don’t regret paying the subscription.
