Currently I’m using Joplin with Syncthing-backed file system synchronization. I’m pretty pleased with it, as I do like tagging- and Markdown-based systems.
I plan to upgrade to server-based synchronization, but before doing that, however, I wanted to see what other people are using.
Edit: So far I see a slight favor towards Joplin and Logseq, but I totally didn’t expect (and appreciate) getting so many different answers.
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Not exactly self-hosted but, I like UpNote a lot.
It’s reasonably simple but, powerful enough for me, and it’s fast & intuitive
same.
Notepad
On Paper not the computer
i heard about this a while back. unparallelled support for syntax, doesnt rely on a cloud service, incredible backwards-compatibility, and quick start-up time
I’ve stuck with Joplin for a while. Self hosting the sync server so it’s all saved privately.
I use silverbullet, it is great for tasks and notes! https://silverbullet.md/ - the manual itself uses it, so it is both a manual and a demo page
Trillium although I wish it has multiple users on the same instance, other than that it’s amazing and suits my needs.
I was a fan too, but lost the portable version I was using when my usb died. The version I pulled off git now freezes every 10 seconds and closes itself down a lot. Not sure how they made it worse but it’s worse now.
cant you download the earlier version instead?
Were you downloading master or the latest release? If you’re interested in using it, post the issue you have on their GitHub. The main dev is super helpful
Notesnook
I like this one too but haven’t fully committed yet. I think once they open self hosting up I’ll give it an honest try .
Logseq
Emacs + org-mode for task planning and knowledge base, Obsidian + Syncthing for notes on-the-go.
Chiming in with my org mode setup as well:
- Keep notes on my NAS
- Mount NFS share with notes on desktop and edit with Emacs
- Create a WebDAV share of the notes (so shared both using nfs and webdav). Use the Android “Orgzly Revived” app from F-droid and log into the webdav share
I used to use Syncthing to avoid having both NFS and Webdav but it didnt sync
Holy crap I didn’t know Syncthing existed and just realized it’s perfect for my use case (taking D&D notes and keeping them on multiple devices). Thanks for the useful comment!
You are welcome! :)
Markor on Android and Obsidian on Desktop.
All synced with syncthing
Notable. Cross platform (no mobile app), sync with cloud drive of your choice, markdown support, easy interface.
I’ve been running the Joplin server for over a year with clients on four laptops and three phones and share notes with my wife and its wonderful. There are certainly quirks and sometimes sync issues but by and large I’m really happy with it. There seems to be one cluster of notes I have that always irritates a fresh client sync and it shows up at 50 conflicts but I work through it. Also my notebooks are huge and the first sync can take an hour. It’s a lot slower than I’d expect.
I’ve been running Joplin server for about two years now, and I concur. It’s been great.
I’ve used Joplin and Standard Notes. I do use Standard Notes premium and I much prefer it.
Joplin. Obsidian is not open source, doesn’t have native self hosting and it gets complicated. Joplin is very simple and just works. Although, it stores the notes in a hashed database, so you can’t edit raw files without Joplin client
Trilium for the same reasons, but the featureset of Trilium is more like Obsidian.
Trillium was originally created to be an open source replacement for Roam Research.Trilium came out in 2017, and had Roam-like features before Roam even existed. It’s similarities to Obsidian are purely coincidental, probably because Obsidian is designed to be a cross between Roam and Evernote.Please, I don’t want to be rude, so don’t take me wrong.
I think that’s not accurate. Trillium is not even an outliner, let alone a block note taking app. I think you’re mixing trillium with Logseq.
My memory may be failing me, but I think trillium has been around longer than Roam Research.
And yes, it’s a great open source note taking app!
I started using Trilium in early 2020, with version 0.40.2. Roam had released in 2019 and was growing in popularity quickly, I heard a lot about Roam, it looked cool, so I googled for an open-source self-hosted knowledge base note taking app with similar features to Roam, like notes arranged in a knowledge graph, and a backlinks explorer for each note. The only one that was available then was trilium. Looks like you’re right, the development of trilium was started in 2017, before Roam existed. This is a great interview with the creator, answers a lot of the questions I had. https://console.substack.com/p/console-169
Obsidian didn’t come out until a few months later (and remained under the radar until 2021), all my colleagues and friends use Obsidian now, but I prefer trilium. I had never heard of logseq before I read this thread. Just a quick glance, I see the first 0.1.0 version logseq was in April 2021, just before the first obsidian release.
Good call on Obsidian not being FOSS! I don’t know that.
Problem with Joplin: The raw files are randomly named so you can’t easily find a specific note
That’s not even the bigger problem. I found the desktop ui very clunky. There were too many papercuts for me to keep using joplin. However, its TUI and mobile app are excellent.
Siyuan. Ive been using it for a while now and find it very effective for my needs. Its gone through quite a few updates since i started using it and became open source in that time. It even has an android version as well which i do have installed on my phone but admittingly rarely use. I prefer writing information on a keyboard generally.
Obsidian is where I landed after trying several.
Just tried it for a bit. Looks pretty sleek and has some nice features, but it seems like it’s not open-source, which is something I’d like to avoid.
I am not trying to defend Obsidian here in regards to its closed source but in the least the notes are not obscured in some database and use markdown format. So once they go away from that, I am out and still have all my notes accessible.
Then Logseq. It’s an outliner (each line can be it’s own…thing…), but it’s open source and a direct competitor of Obsidian. In fact, I was ambivalent between the two when I first started with online note-taking.
Does it store files in plain text?
I think, like Obsidian, it stores them as markdown files.
👍👍
That looks very interesting, mostly because it’s so different. I’ll have to take a closer look later.
