A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
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Just wanted to chime in and give a +1 to Anytype. While I haven't self-hosted the backup node and I can't help you with that just yet, the fact that a free, P2P decentralized, end-to-end encrypted and source-available notes app like Anytype even exists is awesome!
I'd be curious to see if you manage to get the backup node up and running π
I can't configure everything yet, but my Vagrantfile can install and activate most of the dependecies on a Fedora Box from Bento (the Hashicorp, developer of Vagrant, builds those optimized system images). Activating Redis with RedisBloom plugin from boot is prooving tricky. After setting the dependencies, I need to configure Ansible and then export the node settings to be used in the app. It'll take me some time. I'll let you know.
I tried anytype during the alpha, but I understood early on that the data is crippled during export, and the self host node is very cumbersome to set up. Also, I had a gut feeling that it could turn into a enshittified product.
For my usecase, I could achieve my note taking needs by other more established, libre and less complex means.
Fully agree. That's also the main reason I am using Notion even though it's not FOSS, not encrypted etc.
I was fine using Obsidian (even though it's not FOSS either, but you own your data) but I can't figure out a good way to track books and quotes plus my opinion about them while querying them the same way it works in the database with Notion. Dataview is great for many things but doesn't have pagination etc.
Out of curiosity, have you tries logseq or silverbullet.md? They both have capabilities to query your notes similar to Notion.
I've had this challenge with structuring notes-data for a while, but haven't found something that suits my workflow yet. I have on my list to experiment with a sqlite solution.
Yes, I have tested Logseq and even donate to them monthly. However I don't use it actively. Reason is that I just can't figure out a way to store my quotes and my opinion about them from books the same way I do it in Notion.
Basically I store my quotes like this:
Inside each quote I write my opinion or the summary of the quote in my own words, etc.
And then for the books I have it like this:
And inside each book I have the quotes linked:
So yeah I haven't found any way in Obsidian or Logseq to replicate this structure. It's always something simliar that's not working the same way and feels off and only with tweaks, custom CSS and stuff like that.
Hum.... Can you tell me what you're using? Just to give me some ideas.
Not the user you've asked but I'm using Silverbullet and have been loving it, it ticks every box of what I was looking for:
I settled on obsidian with the built in sync. The data is as clean as it gets - its very agnostic to the editor as long as it adheres to the markdown standard (plus flavors). I'm aware that I'm creating a dependency on obsidians workflow and plugins, but the cost of switching is very low considering how I use my knowledge base (I could in work case scenario work with my files with standard Unix tools).
You are free to choose whatever tool that works for you, personally I don't want my notes to be held hostage by a single vendor.
The closest to Anytype is logseq, but silver bullet.md is also awesome. And if you choose another markdown editor, you could use rsync/git/syncthing to synchronize your files.
When it comes to note applications, there is no shortage of them. Just make a informed decision that will serve you well in the long term.
AFAIK they have a proprietary data format so your files aren't really that portable. Therefore I suggest obsidian and syncthing together.
That's why I also switched to Obsidian. Used it for a while, but the inability to port it to another app turned me off.
Their protocol source is available on GitHub. And there's no need to copy the data file between devices, the sync works on your own node (if you can build the setup), on the same lan and on encrypted cloud.
Portable in the sense there is no lock in ie I can get up and leave with my data.
It's a bit hard to do that with anytype.
If they stopped producing features or I wanted my data in another program, I'm stuck with a "Open source" format, but no where to go...
Unless that has changed, then I would take a look again.
Oh, now I got your meaning. There is a feature to export your data. Someone on Reddit said they couldn't export "thousands of notes", but the feature is there. The docs say it. And I used it, but I don't use another app, and don't have thousands of notes yet. It's something to take a look.
You can export your data, but its like exporting your onenote data in PDFs. Your notes will lose the built in functionality and relations.
I believe I'm the noob here, but is it that weird? I mean, in this scenario you're no longer using Anytype, is it really reasonable to expect that all the relations and links you created using it to be transferable to another app? It seems to me like a lot of work to make two different solutions talk to each other so well.What if the other app has a resource you don't want? Or you have a new resource they don't have yet?
Obsidian, logseq, and others work natively with markdown files that are almost cross-compatible and can be edited and used in any text editor. Things like back linking may not be present in that case (of using a plain text editor) but it doesnβt disappear from the file.
Roam uses a proprietary format but exports to markdown.