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’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.
Obsidian! Getting it to use cloud synced folders is a little tricky but it is a fabulous little program.
Available but not FOSS. Gotta watch the license if you use it for any work.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
self hosted alternatives for smart home and porn
How does self hosted porn even work and how am I the first person to notice that sitting there and mention it?
try obsidian.md
this is my current solution; I use Obsidian to manage my notes and I sync the folder with Syncthing. I still use Google Keep though for its whiteboard tool; is there a better app for that?
