this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Currently I'm using Joplin with Syncthing-backed file system synchronization. I'm pretty pleased with it, as I do like tagging- and Markdown-based systems.

I plan to upgrade to server-based synchronization, but before doing that, however, I wanted to see what other people are using.

Edit: So far I see a slight favor towards Joplin and Logseq, but I totally didn't expect (and appreciate) getting so many different answers.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Logseq, it’s a lot like Obsidian as it also has knowledge graphs, tags, is markdown-based and self-hostable but, in contrast to Obsidian, it’s fully open source

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Much prefer Logseq as well.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Tabs right?

New33

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Obsidian is where I landed after trying several.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Just tried it for a bit. Looks pretty sleek and has some nice features, but it seems like it's not open-source, which is something I'd like to avoid.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Then Logseq. It's an outliner (each line can be it's own...thing...), but it's open source and a direct competitor of Obsidian. In fact, I was ambivalent between the two when I first started with online note-taking.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Joplin. Obsidian is not open source, doesn’t have native self hosting and it gets complicated. Joplin is very simple and just works. Although, it stores the notes in a hashed database, so you can’t edit raw files without Joplin client

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

Good call on Obsidian not being FOSS! I don't know that.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Trilium for the same reasons, but the featureset of Trilium is more like Obsidian.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Problem with Joplin: The raw files are randomly named so you can't easily find a specific note

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That's not even the bigger problem. I found the desktop ui very clunky. There were too many papercuts for me to keep using joplin. However, its TUI and mobile app are excellent.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Obsidian. I know it's not open source, but it just felt right.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Yep, same. Though if Acreom ever goes local only on mobile OR when Notesnook opens up self hosting, I will take another look.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yep just swapped over from a self hosted solution with gitlab and sublime.. But that was to restrictive and the overall experience wasnt really good...

I then found a post somewhere on lemmy a post abotu PKMS and what people are using... One was obsidian... So I tried it and I'm really happy

Edit: I saw some comments about some missing self hosting. Since the notes are saved as standard md files you easily ca sync them with whatever you want... I set it up with my synology NAS and DS Drive, but any tool which can sync two-ways should be fine

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Joplin as well, syching my 3 devices with the WebDAV option. I checked a few other options about a year ago and Joplin seemed the best.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Obsidian, and there's also another one that's not yet self-hostable but planning to, called Notesnook

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

https://notion.so It's a web-based editor with a good android app. Has basic formatting, plugins/integrations, and dark mode. It's free for individual use cases. Has some nice paid features for collaboration and business use cases, though the free plan still allows sharing and concurrent editing.

E: noticed this is in self hosted after posting. Maybe not what you're looking for, but it's a good service if you're ok with that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

My only problem with them is the android app, while it has nice features it's soo slow that even on flagship phones it is hard to use, and when you have multiple accounts switching between them is awful, either the files won't load or it won't refresh the interface at all. I usually switch the workspace and then restart the app. Sometimes I can't open the subfiles of a file until I restart the app and wait for it to load.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Logseq.

I used Joplin in the past, but just didn't quite get completely comfortable with it.

I also tried Nextcloud in the past... that project has become too big for my needs and the file syncing had issues.

Logseq is very similar to Joplin (ie markdown files), but IMHO the editor is easier with Logseq, plus the files are just simple plaintext files, named after the page title, so are easy to edit outside of the application (and immediately update in the app)

At first, I was a little unsure of Logseq's default of working as a daily journal, but after a while it makes more sense for me - I use it at work, so 99.9% of my notes are meetings, tasks that occur during daily life... and of course those daily journals can refer to other "non-time based" project pages...

I also use syncthing to sync the notes between android phone, linux and Windows laptops and my NAS... so that wouldn't change for you.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've been running the Joplin server for over a year with clients on four laptops and three phones and share notes with my wife and its wonderful. There are certainly quirks and sometimes sync issues but by and large I'm really happy with it. There seems to be one cluster of notes I have that always irritates a fresh client sync and it shows up at 50 conflicts but I work through it. Also my notebooks are huge and the first sync can take an hour. It's a lot slower than I'd expect.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

A nice grid lined notebook and a mechanical pencil is still my favorite.

I like to use Google Keep for certain things, but I have a hard time explaining how those things are better for Google Keep.

I'm looking at giving Neorg a try.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

A nice grid lined notebook and a mechanical pencil is still my favorite.

If only my default font wasn't so bad that it causes data loss.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Trillium although I wish it has multiple users on the same instance, other than that it's amazing and suits my needs.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Markor on Android and Obsidian on Desktop.

All synced with syncthing

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Logseq with Syncthing!

Love the journal style to it

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Hi all, I created the [email protected] community for this exact reason.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I am currently on Obsidian without any sync at all. Using this in both desktop and mobile.

But used it more in mobile for an offline note-taking app where I could write and read them without any internet connection. Especially to load images from local, make categorization (folders) and more with data I had in my mobile.

While for desktop, I rarely opened it anymore. I am more into VIM with markdown format and then just push it to git host for a quicker note taking.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Emacs with org mode. It has so many feature hooked into so many other things such as time management, calendar, email, jupyter. Hard to switch.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (7 children)

OneNote. Don't love being super reliant on all the Microsoft Office cloud stuff but there really isn't anything that comes close to what I use it for

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

QOwnNotes (had to look up the exact name as it's the stupidest app name ever). but compared to joplin it's lighter, faster, simpler (no database but individual .md files and folders) and works well enough with syncthing.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’d like to highly recommend QOwnNotes with. File system sync like Nextcloud. Superb.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

neovim + git with gitea/forgejo

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Emacs + org-mode for task planning and knowledge base, Obsidian + Syncthing for notes on-the-go.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

I used to use Joplin, and its great, but the Electron client isn't great on Linux mobile, so now I am using GNOME Paper on all devices, synced via Nextcloud. It's much simpler than Joplin but I need exactly 0 of the missng features.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Notepad

On Paper not the computer

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Joplin syncing on my Nextcloud instance. I love being able to quickly screenshot something on my laptop for reference and later retrieve it on my phone :)

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

I've used Joplin and Standard Notes. I do use Standard Notes premium and I much prefer it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Logseq but I know the sync is tricky

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Flatnotes for me. I haven’t tried many others, but it was perfect for what I needed. Markdown, writes plain text files so no database/easy to backup

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Historically I've been using Google keep or one note (I'm a monster I know). I've been trying to see if I can migrate over to Nextcloud notes as I slowly de-FAANG my life.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

I've stuck with Joplin for a while. Self hosting the sync server so it's all saved privately.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

orgmode with neovim on PC and orgzly on phone. syncing with syncthing

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I used to use Joplin, I liked that it integrated with my Nextcloud, and the markdown format. However, the way that it handles the markdown files was too black-boxey to me, with the way it split them up in a weird scheme.

Now I use Ghostwriter with straight markdown files inside my Nextcloud folder. So I still get the syncing functionality, but a more flexible setup that doesn't require a specific app to access all of my notes.

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