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. ✌️
Exactly what I do, too! (Tho I use VS Code and owncloud on desktop, and foldersync on Android.) Only issue I have is occasional file conflicts, if some edits didn’t get sync’d right away. (Tho it hasn’t happened recently, perhaps due to Zettel’s recent file saving updates.)
They store their database mostly as plain markdown, so you can just use your sync app of choice (Nextcloud, Syncthing, etc.) to sync everything between devices.
Maybe Logseq offers their sync as self hostable service too, I don’t know.
I find Logseq extremely awesome and would recommend it to you.
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.
+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 just use Obsidian + Syncthing + MEGA. My obsidian folders are on my mega synced folder on my pc, and they are set up to use syncthing to push updates to all my other devices (2 phones and a tablet), but you can have as many devices as you want. It’s all free as well, and the cloud service can be any that you like.
Keep in mind that the Syncthing Android app was discontinued and thus isnt viable long term. The team wont work anymore on it and once it breaks it’s done for.
I could use Resilio for that but meh…
Also, one of the machines is running the git plugin, so things get saved in my Forgejo as well. I guess I could set it up so they save to hit, but in different branches. 🤔
Checkout Notesnook. I’ve tried most of the ones you’ve listed and have been really enjoying how well it works compared to the competition considering its end-to-end encrypted.
A few features:
Clients and server are open source.
End-to-end encrypted note syncing.
You can publish public notes.
You can publish privates notes that require a password to view.
Most if not all of the general features you’d expect from a notes taking application.
One thing I really like about the project is how open they are about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and what the future holds. It’s been great seeing their roadmap (https://notesnook.com/roadmap/) and seeing promised features land with new ones being added, and I’ve only been using it for less than a year now!
Honestly it seems like Obsidian is the one matching most of your criteria. $4/mo isn’t bad for a bullet proof sync solution with version history, imo. I also have my vault backed up on each client locally for extra protection.
I’d love to suggest Logseq because FOSS, but man does the android app suck.
That said, I find Obsidian really lacks in the simple to-do/checklist function. So I use Quillpad synced to my Nextcloud server for Google Keep-like functionality. Everything else goes into Obsidian.
Another vote for Silverbullet, I’ve been using it for a while and it’s great. There is a tree view plugin that’s very easy to install, however I disabled it after a short while because I realized that, because of the way I take notes, that is a lot less useful than other features.
For example, I have a folder with all my cooking recipes, at first I thought having a Tree view would be good there, but actually if I use the querying mechanism I can have tables that give me more information than just the name, e.g. tags, difficulty, etc. also this works regardless of where the recipes are, so if I want to create a subfolder structure or scrap recipes from elsewhere in the whole space it would work (granted, not very useful for recipes, but I also have a table for work tools, some of which are embebed on another page, some of which are a page of their own, and I have a table that lists all of the tools to give me an overview)
I am the sort to know where to look but not what it’s called. So it’s either a tree view or a content table that gets filled automatically (for example by tags) but also unmarked/untagged notes
Nah, I mean the how it’s written looks close to a for-loop.
Right now this would require me to pay active concentration to write and utilize something like this vs just writing in markdown as I have already memorized part of the syntax.
Don’t get me wrong though, this is very good and impressive to automate.
I am a fan on how MS Word automatically creates the table of content, complete with formatting when just configuring the formatting correctly for the levels. This basically blows it out of the water.
In that sense it is a bit of scripting, it’s a templating language similar to Jinja, so you put things you want to display between {{ }}, for example {{name}} will get rendered as the content of the name variable. [[ ]] is the way Silverbullet habgles links, so [[Something]] is a link to the file Something.md, so [[ {{ name }} ]] is a link to the file with the name from the variable.
Also that’s because I wanted a custom view, a very similar thing could be done with:
\```query
recipe
\```
BTW, you can have a table of contents on Silverbullet by just putting a block named toc, i.e. ```toc and closing it on the next line.
I just use Joplin, encrypted, and synced through dropbox. Tried logseq, but never really figured out how to use its features effectively. The notebook/note model of Joplin seems more natural to me. My coding/scripting stuff mostly just goes into git repos.
community plugin which requires me to use some novel type of db called couch-db (ugh, another service to keep updated/troubleshoot).
I am fine with paying for obsidian-sync as I like the service and am experienced with their flavor of markdown. But before I cough up another money hole for a rarely (1-3 times per month) accessed program I’d prefer another (self-hosted) alternative and donate to the dev instead.
I also don’t like hosting what I don’t quite understand (that means mostly databases). I am already uneasy to host the mariaDB I have setup for hortusFox.
I agree that I don’t like the sync stored in a db rather than a directory of files. I just reminded myself that Remotely Save also saves to webdav on my Synology NAS and to Nextcloud. Since I have both available, I will be looking at them again.
Just as an FYI its done like this because its vastly faster than flat files.
This is also the reason why NextCloud has lots of complaints about speed and files getting locked and not syncing properly.
Apps that are way faster (seafile, owncloud GO) use proprietary file stores.
Obsidian Live sync works extremely well and quickly to the point that the update speed is almost like a google docs with multiple editors. Couchdb is why.
Lol at the obsidian criticisms in the self hosted community :)
Couchdb is like 20 years old and not exactly ‘novel’
I setup a docker for his like 2 years ago and did nothing other than update once in that time. Live sync has otherwise been rock solid on multiple devices.
Obsidian not being open source is very valid criticism. The above 2 things really aren’t.
Couchdb is like 20 years old and not exactly ‘novel’
Tbf I never heard about it. Postgre, Mongodb, mariadb, mysql, MS SQL server, etc. etc. you get the idea.
Never have I heard about the name of couchdb nor that it was used beyond this project.
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I just sync a folder with syncthing and use native markdown editors.
On a desktop I like zettlr. On android I like zettel notes. Both have zettelkasten features which is pretty much just a way to link to other files.
Exactly what I do, too! (Tho I use VS Code and owncloud on desktop, and foldersync on Android.) Only issue I have is occasional file conflicts, if some edits didn’t get sync’d right away. (Tho it hasn’t happened recently, perhaps due to Zettel’s recent file saving updates.)
This is the way
I didn’t read the entire wall of text but didn’t see it listed. check out notesnook.
Ooh, I will be giving this a go!
Seems like a good candidate. Bookmarked it and will take a look. Thanks for the suggestion!
I use this too, such a great app.
Beware of Joplin: saved files ate not native MD files. They have MD extension but internally are quite different.
Still plain text files in a way, but not usable with a different editor easily.
Good to know, thanks.
And the file names are not the note titles like Obsidian (and logseq I believe)
True as well, impossible to find a note on Joplin using only the filesystem.
I can still recommend you Logseq and Obsidian.
They store their database mostly as plain markdown, so you can just use your sync app of choice (Nextcloud, Syncthing, etc.) to sync everything between devices.
Maybe Logseq offers their sync as self hostable service too, I don’t know.
I find Logseq extremely awesome and would recommend it to you.
+1 for logseq & syncthing. I use it across Windows, Linux and Android to my NAS.
synthing has versioning so I don’t lose edits - kinda like OneNote
Another +1 from me. Very similar setup and it’s been working for me for years.
I’ve been using silverbullet for a while. Selfhosted, saves everything on simple markdown files and easy to customize with plugins and space scripts.
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.
+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.
+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.
I just use Obsidian + Syncthing + MEGA. My obsidian folders are on my mega synced folder on my pc, and they are set up to use syncthing to push updates to all my other devices (2 phones and a tablet), but you can have as many devices as you want. It’s all free as well, and the cloud service can be any that you like.
Keep in mind that the Syncthing Android app was discontinued and thus isnt viable long term. The team wont work anymore on it and once it breaks it’s done for.
I could use Resilio for that but meh…
Syncthing-Fork ☞ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid/
Yeah, I just use the fork.
ty :)
I like that the team promotes the fork.
Only the one written by the original Dev. There are others like syncthing fork.
Its still a perfectly viable solution for android.
Just use obsidian with sync thing.
This.
Also, one of the machines is running the git plugin, so things get saved in my Forgejo as well. I guess I could set it up so they save to hit, but in different branches. 🤔
Checkout Notesnook. I’ve tried most of the ones you’ve listed and have been really enjoying how well it works compared to the competition considering its end-to-end encrypted.
A few features:
One thing I really like about the project is how open they are about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it and what the future holds. It’s been great seeing their roadmap (https://notesnook.com/roadmap/) and seeing promised features land with new ones being added, and I’ve only been using it for less than a year now!
Honestly it seems like Obsidian is the one matching most of your criteria. $4/mo isn’t bad for a bullet proof sync solution with version history, imo. I also have my vault backed up on each client locally for extra protection.
I’d love to suggest Logseq because FOSS, but man does the android app suck.
That said, I find Obsidian really lacks in the simple to-do/checklist function. So I use Quillpad synced to my Nextcloud server for Google Keep-like functionality. Everything else goes into Obsidian.
Another vote for Silverbullet, I’ve been using it for a while and it’s great. There is a tree view plugin that’s very easy to install, however I disabled it after a short while because I realized that, because of the way I take notes, that is a lot less useful than other features.
For example, I have a folder with all my cooking recipes, at first I thought having a Tree view would be good there, but actually if I use the querying mechanism I can have tables that give me more information than just the name, e.g. tags, difficulty, etc. also this works regardless of where the recipes are, so if I want to create a subfolder structure or scrap recipes from elsewhere in the whole space it would work (granted, not very useful for recipes, but I also have a table for work tools, some of which are embebed on another page, some of which are a page of their own, and I have a table that lists all of the tools to give me an overview)
I am the sort to know where to look but not what it’s called. So it’s either a tree view or a content table that gets filled automatically (for example by tags) but also unmarked/untagged notes
Let me give you an example, I have a page with this:
Then each recipe page has a header, so for example if I have a file named
Recipes/Steak.mdwith the content:So that table gets populated with all of the recipes wherever they are and I can add other columns or info there. It’s very neat and customizable.
Looks very cool to automate but also a high learning curve for someone just starting out with scripting ;)
Atm probably not for me.
No scripting involved in the above example though.
Nah, I mean the how it’s written looks close to a for-loop.
Right now this would require me to pay active concentration to write and utilize something like this vs just writing in markdown as I have already memorized part of the syntax.
Don’t get me wrong though, this is very good and impressive to automate.
I am a fan on how MS Word automatically creates the table of content, complete with formatting when just configuring the formatting correctly for the levels. This basically blows it out of the water.
In that sense it is a bit of scripting, it’s a templating language similar to Jinja, so you put things you want to display between
{{ }}, for example{{name}}will get rendered as the content of the name variable.[[ ]]is the way Silverbullet habgles links, so[[Something]]is a link to the file Something.md, so[[ {{ name }} ]]is a link to the file with the name from the variable.Also that’s because I wanted a custom view, a very similar thing could be done with:
BTW, you can have a table of contents on Silverbullet by just putting a block named toc, i.e. ```toc and closing it on the next line.
I just use Joplin, encrypted, and synced through dropbox. Tried logseq, but never really figured out how to use its features effectively. The notebook/note model of Joplin seems more natural to me. My coding/scripting stuff mostly just goes into git repos.
I use Obsidian with a docker version of CouchDB. Used to store on Dropbox using Remotely Save.
I am fine with paying for obsidian-sync as I like the service and am experienced with their flavor of markdown. But before I cough up another money hole for a rarely (1-3 times per month) accessed program I’d prefer another (self-hosted) alternative and donate to the dev instead.
I also don’t like hosting what I don’t quite understand (that means mostly databases). I am already uneasy to host the mariaDB I have setup for hortusFox.
I agree that I don’t like the sync stored in a db rather than a directory of files. I just reminded myself that Remotely Save also saves to webdav on my Synology NAS and to Nextcloud. Since I have both available, I will be looking at them again.
Just as an FYI its done like this because its vastly faster than flat files.
This is also the reason why NextCloud has lots of complaints about speed and files getting locked and not syncing properly.
Apps that are way faster (seafile, owncloud GO) use proprietary file stores.
Obsidian Live sync works extremely well and quickly to the point that the update speed is almost like a google docs with multiple editors. Couchdb is why.
For this application, I like flat files. After the initial sync, I only edit one little md file at a time and syncing it should not take long at all.
Now testing Obsidian -> Remotely Save -> webdav -> Synology NAS
Lol at the obsidian criticisms in the self hosted community :)
Couchdb is like 20 years old and not exactly ‘novel’
I setup a docker for his like 2 years ago and did nothing other than update once in that time. Live sync has otherwise been rock solid on multiple devices.
Obsidian not being open source is very valid criticism. The above 2 things really aren’t.
Tbf I never heard about it. Postgre, Mongodb, mariadb, mysql, MS SQL server, etc. etc. you get the idea.
Never have I heard about the name of couchdb nor that it was used beyond this project.
I use Obsidian primarily and just push everything to git. Remember to gitignore
.obsidian/workspaces.jsonto prevent conflicts on multiple devices.emacs + org mode.
You can sync the notes files with any app of your choosing (OneDrive, Google Drive, Nextcloud, Syncthing).