Up to now I’ve been using Simplenote, which has a Linux client (but also Android & iOS) & supports live collaboration on notes. However, Simplenote hasn’t had a meaningful update for a long time, & it’s recently been behaving strangely, e.g. notes undeleting themselves, line duplications & undeletions.
Can anyone recommend an alternative? Spinning up an ownCloud/nextcloud instance just to use Joplin feels a little overkill. I stumbled across turtl, but the project looks abandoned.
Just sync .text or .md files using syncthing. Total control!
I do the same, and eventually I started using Obsidian on top, but you can always switch to something else that opens markdown (vim!)
Obsidian is a brilliant note app, it’s free provided you setup your cloud sync solution (I use syncthing) as it just creates .md files that you can do whatever you want with
Obsidian is not open source
Emacs + orgmode + org-capture + deft + orgzly + syncthing
Sexy Stallman pose
And apparently orgzly has been abandoned.
Eek TIL about orgzly. GPL3 so I guess it’ll find a way forward
Based and emacspilled
Joplin has multiple sync options. Other than Nextcloud, you can use OneDrive, Dropbox, and they have a subscription service as well.
Obsidian is another to look at, but you need to either pay for sync or bring your own sync (
though I don’t know that you can sync to mobile without using their syncedit: see below comment by @fossisfun@lemmy.ml that explains how to do it).I think it’s probably helpful to know if sync across platforms is important to you, and if so, whether you’re willing to pay for it. I’m not sure that there are really many alternatives to an app provided for free with free syncing - that costs money to provide and honestly I’d be a bit dubious about using a service like that.
You can select a local folder in Obsidian for Android and sync the folder with Syncthing. You can even revoke network permissions for Obsidian and it all works completely offline (Flatpak override:
--unshare=network/ GrapheneOS: don’t allow the network permission).This is my current setup, even though Obsidian is not FOSS. I like that it stores standard Markdown files in a traditional filesystem hierarchy, instead of what Joplin does with using Markdown files as a database. This means that with Obsidian I can use any text editor or any other Markdown app to access and edit my notes, whereas with Joplin I would have to export them first to standard Markdown and then potentially rename and reorganise all the files and their attachments.
Unfortunately with iOS you are stuck with Obsidian Sync because Syncthing does not work because of the permission model. Otherwise I prefer Obsidian over Joplin for the above mentioned reasons and nice extension ecosystem. It’s easy to get your files out of Obsidian, no vendor lock-in
Syncing over iCloud drive works well (Obsidian, iOS).
I as well use iCloud for syncing and it works well.
Möbius sync is a Syncthing client for iOS. I have the same setup as Foss Is Fun and everything works very well
I am also using iOS with Möbius Sync and it is working quite well. The sync is not running all the time in the background due to iOS restrictions but it is running multiple times per day on my device.
The option to sync folders was only introduced this year. It costs about 5$ one time payment.
There will be many conversion tools for Joplin to other structures. So I guess the format is a non issue.
Joplin has export options itself, but I just don’t like how Joplin manages notes on a filesystem. If it can be done nicely (see Obsidian), why bother with something needlessly complex (file structure, need to sync with the filesystem, etc.)?
But everyone has different requirements and for the right person, Joplin can certainly be a good solution. ;)
There’s also plenty of FOSS obsidianlikes. Logseq looks promising, but I’m sticking with Obsidian because I rely a lot on some of the extensions.
Either way, migrating is as easy as opening the same folder in one app or the other, so you might as well try.
Trilium with trilium web clipper plugin, moememos with its web plugin and linkding with its plug in. Been able to keep up with all notes with this trio
Trilium is fantastic.
I just sync a directory called “Notes” everywhere and use whatever text editor is most comfortable on any given platform to edit Markdown documents. Helix on desktop, Markor (or, increasingly, Simple Text Editor) on Android. For checklists, same thing except I use todo.txt for the file format, and the todo script on the desktop and Simpletask on Android.
I have been looking for a self-hosted, concurrent collaborative web editor, as asking my wife to write Markdown is a bit much, and the syncing becomes more complex, but I haven’t settled on something.
Hedgedoc is a competent selfhostable alternative. V2.0 is around the corner.
Thanks, Hedgedoc looks like a neat project. It’s focused on Markdown, which is nice, and the preview is handy. The editor requires some knowledge of Markdown, and willingness to use it in some instances, which means it won’t be the best option for my wife. While she’s certainly capable of learning markdown, she has no willingness - it’s one of those areas where she just can’t be arsed to fuss with it. Embedding images, for example, and even seeing the markup while she’s editing is distracting for her.
Anyway, I need to find some WYSIWIG editor. If it saves and loads markdown, all the better, but it’s more important that the editor lool Word-ish, which is what she has to use at work.
Thanks for the pointer, though!
Years ago, I was looking for something similar. Used turtl for almost a year before switching to Joplin. Joplin was great, but not quite what I needed, and when Logseq came around, I switched again to it. Again, Logseq was just not exactly what I needed (though it is pretty powerful!) and I was worried what would happen when the devs either made it paid or abandoned the project, like so many before it.
The solution to my woes was Emacs. Now, I won’t pretend the learning curve isn’t steep, but there just isn’t anything that compares to it. Org-mode + Org-roam + notdeft is amazing, and I’ve never even looked for anything else since becoming accustomed to it. Plus, you can easily modify the existing tools or write your own to adapt it to your personal style.
You will never regret the time you invest in Emacs.
I personally use Markor on Android and (neo)vim on Linux. I sync the note files using rsync (but syncthing is totally viable also).
It’s probably not the solution you want but thought I’d mention it for others interested.
Biggest issue with Joplin is that it doesn’t store the actual markdown in files that I can see. You’re basically screwed if you ever want to move to a different product.
I use Zim, a local wiki which uses text files with a markdown-like syntax, Syncthing to synchronize the notes, and Markor on Android supports this syntax.
Anyone else tried Acreom? I don’t think it’s open source though, but a local first markdown editor with some cool features like integration with Jira and has a nice UI.
That said, I still haven’t decided if I will stick with it. I use Obsidian for journaling, brain dumps, and documenting projects in working on. Ive tried also using it as a Google Keep replacement, but its not really geared for the To-do/shopping lists that I use Keep for.
Notesnook and Standard Notes are really good. Both are end-to-end encrypted and FOSS.
Every other app and solution I’ve tried is kinda janky, e.g. using Dropbox, git, Syntching or some other app to sync across devices. I want an all-in-one, encrypted, cloud-based, FOSS solution.
I’ve been using Standard Notes for some years now and I’m pretty happy with it.
@OrkneyKomodo
I use #syncthing as an alternative to cloud services. Share two folders, no matter where they are, on what device etc, provided the device can run a version of syncthing.
And its not only notes: pictures, movies and whatnot.
I transfered 60gb of pictures from the family oc to my phone with thatI use Trilium
Obsidian and a shared Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive folder?
Obsidian isnt FOSS sadly, but still very good and you own your files
