Selfhosted alternative to google keep/onenote/evernote/goodnotes?
from meneervana@lemm.ee to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 27 Oct 23:25
https://lemm.ee/post/45943693

I’m completely new to selfhosting but see a lot of potential. I wonder if anyone knows a good way to self host a notetaking app? The point is that I need to access my notes on multiple devices so self hosting them could be a nice idea. I currently use google keep and goodnotes but would like to leave those behind…

#selfhosted

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variants@possumpat.io on 27 Oct 23:32 next collapse

I setup nextcloud and just use that to backup my Obsidian notes. But I also use next cloud deck depending on the type of notes or list I’m making

warm@kbin.earth on 28 Oct 00:38 next collapse

Obsidian but with syncthing here, just syncs the files across my devices.

Zeoic@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 01:19 next collapse

You should take a look at the selfhosted live sync plugin for obsidian. It’s been working flawlessly for me for the past year.

stom@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 28 Oct 07:06 collapse

Doesn’t it actually require you to sign up to an account on some app hosting platform, rather than self host it?

Zeoic@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 11:22 collapse

No, but that is an option if you dont have the hardware to self host it. I have it on one of my vms on my server in the basement.

EDIT: I just took another look at the github repo and it kind of looks like you can’t just selfhost it, but you can, the main readme is just a little confusing. Click on the “Setup your CouchDB” link in the manual section and the selfhosted via docker guide is there.

RaoulDook@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 02:52 collapse

Nextcloud has a Notes app too

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 28 Oct 12:04 collapse

This is what I use

Mora@pawb.social on 27 Oct 23:34 next collapse

I’ve used Joplin before which was okay-ish (but borked the e2e encryption during an update).

Now I would recommend Silverbullet if you are really keen on self hosting a notes app.

But the notes that work best for me is simply Obsidian + Syncthing-Fork (you could self host a syncthing server), thanks to its sheer ability to adapt to nearly any use case thanks to its plugin.

[deleted] on 28 Oct 00:00 next collapse

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Mora@pawb.social on 28 Oct 00:04 collapse

But Syncthing Fork is not shut down and is still maintained (never used the main version tbh).

github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android-fdroid

f-droid.org/…/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandr…

perishthethought@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 00:06 next collapse

Oooohh. TIL. Thanks!

meneervana@lemm.ee on 29 Oct 09:58 collapse

Thanks!

perishthethought@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 00:00 next collapse

If you go this route, OP, and have an Android phone, then you should know the (very sad and disappointing) news that SyncThing for Android is about to be shut down.

github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android

twinnie@feddit.uk on 28 Oct 00:20 collapse

What was wrong with Joplin? I was thinking about giving it a try.

paradox2011@lemmy.ml on 28 Oct 00:55 next collapse

Not the OP, but I believe they’re talking about the upgrade from 128 bit AES to 256 bit AES. It created some compatibility issues between clients for a few days as the ones that weren’t updated yet couldn’t decrypt the newer 256 AES encrypted notes. That was my experience anyways. It’s a great app/server from my personal experience.

christov@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 09:04 collapse

I also tried Joplin and while it’s great while using it, there’s no background sync and never will be. That’s a huge pain when you’re mobile and need to get at your notes but have little or no signal.

umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml on 27 Oct 23:39 next collapse

Appflowy if Notion appels you. It is not 1.0 yet so some features you need might not be there.

appflowy.io

morethanevil@lemmy.fedifriends.social on 28 Oct 00:10 collapse

Outline or Affine are better choices for a notion replacement imo 🤔

umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml on 28 Oct 00:16 next collapse

Never heard of them. Will check them out sometime. Thx.

morethanevil@lemmy.fedifriends.social on 28 Oct 00:40 collapse

Affine is a newer project and has interesting features. Outline is more mature. I prefer outline a little bit more 😌

tyler@programming.dev on 28 Oct 01:03 collapse

Man we need a giant comparison table. I looked into these but have been trying out SiYuan.

rolltidehero@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 01:27 next collapse

Yea… I may put one together because I’ve tried so many just trying to find the right fit and that includes handwriting support. I wish Obsidian had better handwriting support because it’s my favorite notes app.

morethanevil@lemmy.fedifriends.social on 28 Oct 01:59 collapse

Siyuan wants an account even if I want to sync in WebDAV or S3, sorry but no.

jeena@piefed.jeena.net on 27 Oct 23:50 next collapse

I use radicals for CalDAV and save notes there together with my calendars. On Android there is jtx Board which let's you work with them. Sadly on Linux I couldn't find anything so I started writing something myself but don't have much time to work on it https://github.com/jeena/JNotes

perishthethought@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 00:02 next collapse

I use Memos and love it.

www.usememos.com

I connect to it from my desktop at home and from my phone via a WireGuard VPN and it’s everything I need. Worth a look, I think.

morethanevil@lemmy.fedifriends.social on 28 Oct 00:08 next collapse

Yeah Memos is great. I use it as a personal journal. It supports great features like Postgres database, tags, filters, S3 for assets, SSO with OIDC. Dev works on more features like referencing notes if I read correctly

Only downside for me is, pictures are always at the end of a note, not inline like in wikis

rolltidehero@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 01:24 next collapse

Looks great! Does it have handwriting support?

perishthethought@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 02:21 collapse

I don’t see anything about that on their site.

precarious_primes@lemmy.ml on 28 Oct 04:00 collapse

Memos fits a wide variety of uses and is the first note system that has clicked for me. I use it for quick notes so I don’t forget things, journal-like entries, save for later (like Pocket), shopping lists and other todos.

mojolobo@lemmy.jrvs.cc on 28 Oct 01:19 next collapse

After trying a bunch, I’m using Obsidian + <your choice of sync plugin> now. Good thing with Obsidian is your notes are ultimately a bunch of plaintext files, so you can do whatever you want with them, and it comes with clients for most platforms.

Another option is Trilium, it is pretty powerful, and has a webapp so as long as you can access a browser, you’ll be able to access your notes. github.com/zadam/trilium

Artaca@lemdro.id on 28 Oct 01:23 next collapse

Been using Logseq since February and it’s been a game changer. My only gripes are a) inability to access via browsers, and b) lack of a quick note function. Sometimes I still use Keep to jot something down and transfer later. Logseq spends a solid 5+ seconds syncing upon opening, which can feel like an eternity when trying to quickly log something.

sudneo@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 10:43 collapse

For browser, there is a webapp that can be selfhosted. See here github.com/logseq/…/docker-web-app-guide.md

I think you need chromium browsers due to the API they use, but it should work.

homegrowntechie@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 05:34 next collapse

+1 for the open source option: Trilium The project is being maintained here: github.com/TriliumNext/Notes

[deleted] on 28 Oct 13:46 collapse

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bastion@feddit.nl on 28 Oct 02:23 next collapse

Trilium. You’ll be glass glad you tried it.

homegrowntechie@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 05:36 next collapse

Trilium is an excellent option, however, the original project is no longer maintained. There is a new community fork that is active here: github.com/TriliumNext/Notes

bastion@feddit.nl on 28 Oct 22:13 collapse

Good point.

Empricorn@feddit.nl on 28 Oct 06:14 collapse

Are you threatening to nuke my home if I don’t!?

bastion@feddit.nl on 28 Oct 22:11 collapse

Ooh, typo. I’ll edit it so that those who fulfill these kinds of things know not to glass your home.

Empricorn@feddit.nl on 28 Oct 23:00 collapse

Eh, if you want. It’s a rental…

linearchaos@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 02:40 next collapse

I’d vote for anytype or obsidian

Anytype has a learning curve, But it has built-in encryption and IPFS syncing provided by the company. The templating system is really slick and the relational aspect is pretty solid.

Obsidian + syncthing fork is a really solid contender. It’s much easier to work with out of the box but the features are a little more generic.

Neither of these are really self-hosted, so much as they are contained in their own ecosystem. You get some measure of higher availability that you have to really work for if you’re really self-hosting a product.

milan@discuss.tchncs.de on 28 Oct 09:22 collapse

Hm at some point Anytype apps will be configurable for custom servers tho (i assumed they were already but i might have been wrong).

Obsidian also has some interesting sync plugins that dont require syncthing

linearchaos@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 11:40 collapse

The crypto is decent, it’s electron so it’s source available. If you want to ignore their hosting solution, you can disable the syncing and just take the vault from its config directory and sync it yourself

The real downsides are that it’s not actual open source, so if they decided to screw around with the security or turn the crypto off somebody can’t just fork it.

Moonrise2473@feddit.it on 28 Oct 06:03 next collapse

It’s still in alpha but hoarder is promising

It’s designed to organize bookmarks, but can also support markdown notes with picture (a single picture, not multiple pictures)

Unfortunately at the moment the mobile app is so alpha that doesn’t support creation or editing such notes, only new bookmarks or new photos.

It uses a headless chromium to make screenshots for URLs.

Optionally, can use a bullshit generator like ollama or openai api keys to automatically create a lot of useless tags to each note

jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 07:48 next collapse

Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.

DampSquid@feddit.uk on 28 Oct 08:09 next collapse

What’s this about Syncthing now?

Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 28 Oct 09:11 collapse

Dev discontinued the app due to google being difficult to maintain.

DampSquid@feddit.uk on 28 Oct 09:37 collapse

Ah damn. Thanks for the info

xenspidey@lemmy.zip on 28 Oct 13:16 next collapse

See my comment about Resilio sync above

jjlinux@lemmy.ml on 29 Oct 00:02 collapse

I migrated to the Syncthing android fork, and it’s even better than the original.

github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android

xenspidey@lemmy.zip on 28 Oct 13:16 next collapse

Resilio sync works great for that since syncthing is on the out. I actually prefer Resilio anyways

lordnikon@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 14:47 collapse

Obsidian is not open source but i also think it’s pretty neat.

christov@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 09:00 next collapse

I’ve been getting on well with notesnook, the self hosting is in beta right now but its just a docker container. Docs are coming for self hosting in the near future.

notesnook.com

The criteria for me when I was looking for a notes app were:

  • self hosted
  • e2e encrypted
  • supports images and other rich media as well as text
  • can use markdown for text formatting
  • supports mobile as well as some desktop interface
  • can make lists with checkable boxes
  • background sync

Notesnook hits all of these. I wish it had a dedicated desktop app but that’s something I can just use a browser window for.

Lemongrab@lemmy.one on 28 Oct 15:40 collapse

Notesnook has a desktop app. Does it not work with self hosted implementation?

christov@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 16:21 collapse

You’re right! I missed it somehow

darcmage@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 28 Oct 11:49 next collapse

Welcome to the rabbit hole of selfhosted note-taking apps. selfh.st/apps/?tag=Note-Taking

Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a journey. You’ll probably end up going through a few of these options until you find one that works for you and fits your workflow.

sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone on 28 Oct 12:03 next collapse

I use nextcloud notes because I already have nextcloud and my needs are not that sophisticated

sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works on 28 Oct 17:00 collapse

I’m going to try this out. I hesitated because I was considering switching to Owncloud Infinite Scale, but I’m not going to bother because I decided the file structure OCIS uses is a deal-breaker (way too complex to recover in a disaster).

Nibodhika@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 13:27 next collapse

I use silverbullet.md and love it, it’s a bit more than a note taking app, but it’s definitely worth it.

werefreeatlast@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 13:44 next collapse

Probably Joplin is the easiest to use. Looks like OneNote but it’s different in many ways.

woodgen@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 15:41 next collapse

Results from me asking this 1Y ago: lemm.ee/post/4593760

Went with Joplin and using it since.

desentizised@lemm.ee on 28 Oct 21:46 next collapse

My solution is basically what @mojolobo mentions with Nextcloud behind it and I love the concept. Because Obsidian (via a WebDAV plugin on the phone) just syncs with the “Notes” folder in my Nextcloud root it really is just a bunch of .md (markdown) files. It gives me an added sense of security (on top of the self-hosting aspect) because I can see those files everywhere I have Nextcloud installed, I can edit them manually if I wanted to. On the PC you just point the Obsidian app to the folder, on phones you do it via a WebDAV plugin.

olafurp@lemmy.world on 28 Oct 22:05 next collapse

Nextcloud is a really good all-in-one solution for self hosting data

jjlinux@lemmy.ml on 29 Oct 00:00 next collapse

I use Joplin, no complaints.

piotrkulpinski@lemmy.world on 29 Oct 11:18 next collapse

You can browse the collection on OpenAlternative here: openalternative.co/categories/notetaking

meneervana@lemm.ee on 30 Oct 18:03 collapse

Thanks a lot!

higgsboson@dubvee.org on 29 Oct 14:08 next collapse

I use Joplin on top of Nextcloud.

bricklove@midwest.social on 29 Oct 15:10 next collapse

I’m just using a self hosted git repo with markdown files. I was having trouble finding something open source that I could edit with vim that also had a good mobile solution. I also didn’t want to get locked into a file format that was specific to an app.

Markdown is ubiquitous and I use git all the time as a developer so it was easier to tack something onto an existing workflow. It’s a little janky but at least I won’t be screwed by devs abandoning whatever app I was using.

Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml on 29 Oct 17:29 next collapse

Quillpad is the closest I’ve found. It’s simple markdown files. It can sync with Nextcloud as well. I use it for any short note or lists. Long form stuff including journal, I use Obsidian (not open source)

meneervana@lemm.ee on 30 Oct 17:23 collapse

It really does have that same look that Google Keep has! Thanks for recommending, I will try this! Do you have experience with syncing Quillpad with Nextcloud?

Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml on 30 Oct 20:02 collapse

Yes. I have a Pi4 running NextcloudPi image on it. I sync docs, pics, even backup my Obsidian vault. It’s worked really well for Quillpad in my experience. On desktop I use Iotas (Linux) if I need to update from that instead of my phone.

Wuttin@lemmy.ml on 31 Oct 01:43 collapse

Logseq + SyncThing-Fork for me. The killer feature I was looking for to switch from Evernote was voice recording support, logseq is the first thing I’ve found that does a decent job of it while having a solid Workflowy-style “bullets all the way down” interface, which I’ve come to appreciate. The mobile app still leaves a lot to be desired, it’s a little clunky with lots of buttons and very limited swipe gestures. Gets the job done anyhow, and the desktop app is amazing.

meneervana@lemm.ee on 31 Oct 10:09 collapse

Thanks!