Looking for a note-taking app, preferably that I could use straight from a browser. I’m currently using Standard Notes. Not sure if that one is any good, but E2EE and open-source which at least checks those boxes. I don’t store anything too sensitive and I don’t need a whole bunch of features, though I suppose I’d use them if they were available.
I’m honestly not too picky but maybe discussion here could help someone else out who may be looking for the same thing with higher expectations? I’ll switch over to a better option if there’s something considerably better.
Thanks in advance
I kind of love note taking apps so I can rundown a few:
- Logseq (FOSS, can technically run in a browser but it’s very limited and literally called “demo”)
- Obsidian (not FOSS but local md first, very mature and a huge community)
- Joplin (FOSS and probably general go-to for cross-platform open source notes in general but is a bit of a memory hog)
- StandardNotes (you already described this one)
- notesnook (very new offering probably most similar to SN but I don’t know)
- AnyType (also very new and striving for more of a Notion-like experience but I think still needs time to mature)
I use Logseq most often, although I prefer Joplin on mobile. Obsidian and Logseq are more “personal knowledge management” and may be overkill for simple note-taking, plus I feel they are a little bloated on mobile. Honestly not sure which ones work in a browser, but I agree that’s a feature I’d like more of. All of these though I believe are cross-platform so should be usable on mobile or desktop.
Joplin (FOSS and probably general go-to for cross-platform open source notes in general but is a bit of a memory hog)
This comment describes my frustration with modern software.
How could a note taking app be a memory hog?
You could type out a whole War and Piece and it shouldn’t take more than couple megabytes to store it.
I just started using Joplin and I’m quite liking it so far. Opening the task manager on my pc and I can definitely see it likes to use up memory, but hopefully that won’t be much of an issue. It takes a few moments to synchronize but that’s alright. It has more features than the free version of Standard Notes, but SN feels a bit smoother if that makes sense. Still not sure which I prefer quite yet but we’ll see
Hope you find something that works! I do enjoy that Joplin is not paywalled in anyway, and is still super robust, private, and local first. I personally hop around between several note taking apps based on my needs so finding apps that are local md first is high priority for me so that if I move to another app all of my notes can move with me.
Joplin stores notes in a database rather than directly as Markdown, but they can easily be exported as Markdown which I guess is the next best thing.
Do you find that the mobile Logseq app takes ages to open, or is my phone just too old? I really want to like Logseq, but it wasn’t snappy enough.
I have a fairly old iPhone and I never have much of an issue with speed, so maybe?
My main issues with Logseq on mobile is that a) there’s no plug-in support which makes my workflow much more difficult and b) I find the UI as just a copy of the desktop UI without many mobile-specific features usable but not super intuitive. If I need to jot down a quick note or TODO on the go I don’t think it’s best. I keep the app mainly to reference longer notes on the go.
