HelixNotes is completely free, open source, with no bloat. Your notes should be yours.
So we made sure they are. https://helixnotes.com/
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I’ll wait a few months and then check in again.
It stores all metadata in YAML frontmatter and doesn’t cache in an SQLite blob? I bet that decision will be reversed pretty quickly once people try to migrate a 10k+ note collection and want to do operations like search immediately instead of scanning every file to build an in-memory cache.
You’re right that all metadata lives in markdown frontmatter, but it’s not uncached. The notes list also only reads around 2KB frontmatter, so it stays fast well past 10k notes. We do have some tweaks planned though to optimize this even further. This is a great suggestion, thank you!
No vibe coding. No AI. No slop. This is absolutely screaming LLM
The whole website looks like AI.
Also the commit history is only 3 month old and the first commit is 26000 lines. How ever this could be longer in development and commits could be squashed. At this point, I doubt it though.
He did one big rewritten before because of poor gui speed. I won’t comment on of if he use ai or not or code quality, but you can probably search old posts about his rewritten. I do agree dev should keep his git history less susceptible especially in this ai slop age
I’ve been using Joplin on my phone and laptop with WebDAV sync to my NAS. Have plans to update to Joplin server so can share notes with the Baroness.
Been using Joplin with self hosted server for years and it’s been great. It’s not the prettiest app, but it’s been the stickiest for my needs.
Iirc Joplin has a Nextcloud plugin so Nextcloud can be the self hosted cloud storage. I’ve been meaning to set it up
Please, please, add forgejo integration for sync provider.
I use Forgejo with Helixnotes. But I sync with the App PuppyGit.
I’ll try PuppyGit. I wish GitNex had this feature.
Is there an option to make check boxes for shopping lists? I cant find one.
Edit - yes there is. I found it.
Light mode - what’s wrong with you? /s (but not really).
Im old lol
Is this obsidian2?
I like obsidian
Seems quite good - I’ve tried a LOT of MarkDown editors over the years, but until quite recently, I’d stuck with Zettlr for a long time. I’ve recently reinstalled my laptop, which made me look for alternatives to some software, and I’ve been playing round with MarkText for the last few days, which seems nice.
HelixNotes is definitely good - if I had to drop MarkText, I think I could get on well with it. I like that they have a debian repository, so I can keep it updated with the usual system update software. I downloaded the AppImage as a quick test, but it didn’t work because it was compiled against an old version of glibc.
The only thing I don’t like so far is the format toolbar is at the bottom of the editor screen, and I haven’t found a way to move it.
Great suggestion on the movable toolbar. This is definitely something we can add.
Sounds great, look forward to seeing that. After using it a bit more, another thing occurred to me - there’s no way to open arbitrary files. I don’t use MarkDown for “just notes” or “just one thing”, I keep markdown files all over the place. I had set the repository directory to be that of my blog posts during first run, but then I can’t open things in my notes directory or documents folder, and I can’t see anywhere in the settings dialogue to change it. Am I missing something?
Looks like a cool project, anyone here try it and have an elivator pitch on why this over Joplin?
Looks cool… but as an Obsidian user, i’m uncertain as to the depth of the differentiators. Open source sure, but obsidian has served me well and is lightning fast to open even with all core plug-ins enabled plus several community plug-ins. Nearly all of which are optional anyway.
Obsidian also has quite a moat in terms of third-party functionality enhancements with very feature rich examples like Xcalidraw.
They also offer an end to end encrypted synchronization service that works better than file based synchronization services like iCloud, and a publish service that also works well.
No casting of aspersions, but as a former fortune 500 decision-maker for enterprise software in the millions, I have a tendency to critically think about why X vs Y for my personal stack as well. Counterpoints welcome!
I’m using Joplin, sync’d across Nextcloud to my android phone, Linux laptop and Linux desktop.
this do much the same or …better ?
I’m doing this about an intermediate step. My notes are all in a GIT repository. So I use GIT to create the synchronization between the different devices. On the smartphone with PuppyGit. Positive side effect: The note app itself does not require synchronization.
How do you commit changes and solve conflicts? Thank you!
I am the only one that edit the notes. So I know when I changed what and thus perform push/pull in the correct order. It is very rare that I edit the same note on several devices at the same time.
Nextcloud syncs great on PC but we’re still working on implementing Webdav which would affect your Android device.
Was AI used in the process of making this app, and if so, how? I have personal issues with using ‘vibe-coded’ software. This looks very, very nice, so I figured I’d ask.
Thanks for asking. Yes, we use AI as a tool in our workflow. The difference between our workflow and ‘vibe coding’ is that we can catch and fix problems. We’re not just shipping whatever an AI produces and hoping it works.
Excellent. Thank you. But using an online AI provider to me seems against the stated goals. I know online is the preferred option for most people, but you should provide them alongside connecting to a local server.
It says it supports ollama (local)
AI Actions
Improve writing, summarize, translate. Runs locally with Ollama, or use your own API key. Your data stays yours.
I still use Simple note.
While I’d prefer one that isn’t owned by the same people as WordPress and not sync to their cloud, it is open source and free. I figure it beats Google or MS notes, and don’t have to manage syncing all the files. No AI nonsense either (at least for now)
Easy for shopping lists and jotting stuff down, there’s an app for all the major OSs. I definitely don’t trust it for anything important or sensitive.
im fine with quillpad
intriguing
