I tried a bit of Notesnook. While it wasnt bad it didnt quite fit the expectation that obsidian created for me for what I want. Maybe it was user error but I honestly can’t say what specific aspect bothered me.
For now I decided to stay with what I have experience witg and bought a year of Obsidian-sync for 1 Remote-Vault
Thanks to everyone that suggested me solutions to my really specific problem. I appreciate that and I love(d) the discouse I seemingly sparked in this post.
Please continue commenting. Maybe someone else still hasnt found their solution yet :)
Original Post:
Hello fellow lemmy users,
for the lack of a better fitting community I hope my request for help fits here the best.
I am a bit of a scatter-brain, have some notes in Google Keep, OneNote, Obsidian and in GitHub or other places. This is partially multiplied by splitting my work stuff with my home stuff.
What I like about every app I use so far
OneNote: I like the way I can write on something like a canvas. Very useful if the note does fit the general theme of the page but not at the exact position. Also helps by utilizing the big space of a horizontal monitor. Also it now sports a very good mobile editor.
Obsidian: So easy to backlink between notes and I love the graph view. I also like the extension “code styler” which lets me format inline code blocks with syntax highlighting (e.g.: `{powershell icon} Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Path\To\Folder -Filter XYZ*`).
I like to learn scripting but I also use obsidian for RL-stuff and technical non-code like keeping track of configs, settings, wishlists etc.
Google Keep: I bastardize the check-box feature to keep track of (online) shop orders. Mostly the only reason is that checked items get hidden in a collapsed section
Any other program that let’s me to that (even with plugin/extension) is a valid replacement candidate
What I dislike:
OneNote:
Quite difficult to link between notes (unsupported on mobile)
Limited to 1 folder deep notes. Currently work around that by using the horizontal space or multi notes.
A bit clunky to edit bigger notes
By microsoft.
Obsidian:
No native way to have everything on a server outside of using the obsidian-sync service for $4 or the community plugin which requires me to use some novel type of db called couch-db (ugh, another service to keep updated/troubleshoot). I can stomach the $4 but am limited to only one vault which I don’t really like.
Google Keep:
Google
No real way to have everything backed up. Only use it for quick notes or for my shipment list. Everything else is probably exported to Obsidian/OneNote if I feel like doing house-keeping.
How I currently manage/store my files:
Right now I use
OneNote which is stored on OneDrive (I like how Outlook (classic) works and I got 1TB of cloud storage),
Obsidian which syncs with the plugin “remotely sync” to my OneDrive folder.
Google Keep: Dunno. Probably some account storage on google
What I want:
A primarily server-side setup or with a native sync feature that works like on OneNote: The true source is my server or the cloud, the client only streams/caches the data locally. I have no problem with individual markdown files.
I just dislike the general need to sync them manually with external tools like syncthing.
I already have a good backup solution on my main server and secondary server (For the curious: Veeam backup and replication that backs my proxmox VMs). No need to manage another set of backups.
Another reason I want everything in one spot as I already have everything scattered.
A tree view of my notes like obsidian and OneNote does. Plus point if the app can even do sections like OneNote does.
(Optional) A way change-log of the edits done. Some apps do it by implementing git or have a very rudimentary way to manage that
Mobile/desktop companian app: PWA is okay but I would probably miss out on the caching feature. I would prefer an actual (android) app on my phone. Same for Windows.
What I found so far but have issues so far:
silverbullet: Server-side but seems to miss the side bar with the tree view (which can probably be added by another extension). Seems like the best candidate so far
Joplin: Seems alright to use but I can’t use callouts which (to me) is mandatory to use with coding/scripting tasks.
Obsidian: Fits best of all I found but I dislike the $4. But still miles better as the former option which was (i believe) $15 monthly
BookStack: I bit limited how it manages the change-log. Seems okay
Outline: No way to sync it without paying beyond manual sync. Didnt try it out much but I like how it looks.
Logseq: Same issues as with obsidian: Paid sync. Didnt look much beyond
Joplin: Sufficient but no callouts :(
Trilium Notes: Maintenance mode. Not a deal-breaker but I don’t want to migrate something that could maybe die :/
Thanks for reading the wall of text and I wish you a good start into the year of 2025. ✌️
+1 to silverbullet. Been using it for a long portion of its lifetime, I love that you can adjust it and add functionality by writing pages in the editor
You can write code blocks with a special syntax that makes silverbullet interpret the code block as a script and executes it. It’s referred to as space script in the documentation iirc. You can add commands, text transformers, etc with ease.
The live query templating system is super neat too, I have a few subsections in my notes with an index page that automatically lists all child pages with a summary of the page, if I’ve written one for that page.
For me, not needing another app and the fact that is easily selfhosted is great. For Obsidian you have to pay for their sync solution and I remember the logseq app was cumbersome and the web client wasn’t so good, but that’s my opinion.
Silverbullet is open source and has a very simple architecture with slightly extended markdown files which are easy to sync using whatever you use for syncing files. Plus it syncs files locally and allows you to edit offline and sync later (with a basic sync conflict resolution to avoid losing changes) and a very cool feature is that it allows you to write your own scripts to get whatever feature you want.
I really tried to like silverbullet but the VI mode is too bare bones for me. The worst thing about it is that Ctrl+W closes the browser tab instead of deleting one word left of the cursor and there is no way around that. I think I closed the silverbullet tab 20 times while typing a single note.
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I’ve been using silverbullet for a while. Selfhosted, saves everything on simple markdown files and easy to customize with plugins and space scripts.
+1 for Silverbullet too!
Paired with markor on android and syncrhing is my to go solution.
I could use silverbullet on android directly as well but for some reason I prefer a native editor there.
+1 to silverbullet. Been using it for a long portion of its lifetime, I love that you can adjust it and add functionality by writing pages in the editor
Can you explain what you mean by that? Sounds neat
You can write code blocks with a special syntax that makes silverbullet interpret the code block as a script and executes it. It’s referred to as space script in the documentation iirc. You can add commands, text transformers, etc with ease.
The live query templating system is super neat too, I have a few subsections in my notes with an index page that automatically lists all child pages with a summary of the page, if I’ve written one for that page.
What’s the benefit if using silver bullet over Obsidian or logseq?
For me, not needing another app and the fact that is easily selfhosted is great. For Obsidian you have to pay for their sync solution and I remember the logseq app was cumbersome and the web client wasn’t so good, but that’s my opinion.
Silverbullet is open source and has a very simple architecture with slightly extended markdown files which are easy to sync using whatever you use for syncing files. Plus it syncs files locally and allows you to edit offline and sync later (with a basic sync conflict resolution to avoid losing changes) and a very cool feature is that it allows you to write your own scripts to get whatever feature you want.
I really tried to like silverbullet but the VI mode is too bare bones for me. The worst thing about it is that Ctrl+W closes the browser tab instead of deleting one word left of the cursor and there is no way around that. I think I closed the silverbullet tab 20 times while typing a single note.