Hi guys! I think I’m over Joplin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s simple, it works, but… why is it Postgres db…. I have the server on a small box with like 250 GB of space and backing it up with kopia to Backblaze with free 10 GB, so I’m a bit storage cautious.
With each snapshot, it seems like a good chunk of the database changes, even when I don’t use Joplin that day. That results in kopia backing up those changed files, and backups keep growing. Right now the Joplin database is like 200Mb, BUT when I export the notes from the app… all of them weigh 2Mb… including images. Yes there is versioning of notes, but they shouldn’t be that big after one-two months lol.
I know I know, I’m being a bit weird about it, but I’m getting daily notifications about backups and I see how they grow each day.
Anyway, do you have any alternatives that have an app on iOS and on Linux? Or should I just use Apple Notes in the browser? Thanks
EDIT: The answer was easier than I thought. Just don’t back it up, it’s synced which means each device has a copy of it anyway so there is not really need for it, thanks @vvv@programming.dev !
I also switched from Joplin to Obsidian after about half a year. There’s an open-source plugin that lets you self-host a syncing server.
What I found paradoxical is how easy it is to mod and write plugins for Obsidian compared to Joplin. I would’ve thought that modifying the open-source candidate would’ve been easier, but nope.
I second obsidian. I was on the verge to jump onto logseq, but found its way of handling notes to be… different. I also felt a dislike of anytype where I don’t really have control over my notes. Obsidian clicked with me from the start and felt right. So I went with it, even though it’s not FOSS (which is usually a hard requirement from me).
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That’s the near thing about it… you don’t.
But jokes aside, it is mostly about syncing notes for the selfhosting part. You either go with the official offer, no self-hosting and costs money, or you use a community plug-in, self-hosted, or you use a third program like syncthing, selfhosted.
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Syncthing is the way, I had tried setting on nextcloud but never could get it to store how I wanted, but syncthinf was ridiculously easy and should work for anything that uses a folder
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There is a plugin for obsidian to work with syncthing, but it seems to still be in development, implementing through the app and selecting the folders also gave me a reason for syncing my camera as well, and was super easy, no portfowarding or anything required
Yeah, I’ve been on Obsidian before, but self-hosted syncing on iOS is a bit finicky.
I’ve heard good things about Logseq, but it’s certainly a waaay different approach to notes. I’ll have to read more about it. Thanks :)
Did you know that you can use Joplin on a standard webdav server? Basically it just takes up the space of the data itself. I have it on a Caddy server and works like q charm synching between Windows and Android client
Came here to say just that. The WebDAV synchronization target is great.
Yeah, I’m yet to play around with WebDAV or learning what it actually is haha Will look into it, thanks :)
why is it Postgres db…
Why on earth are you using that? Just use WebDAV, you’ll only be required to have some WebDAV server such as Nginx and it will sync GB of notes without issues. https://joplinapp.org/help/apps/sync/webdav/ https://medium.com/learn-or-die/build-a-webdav-server-with-nginx-8660a7a7311
I would’ve NEVER ever moved to Joplin if it wasn’t able to sync with WebDAV. I’m not into having a special daemon running on a server for that task, makes zero sense.
It works great with my self-hosted NextCloud!
I need to look into webDAV then :D
Connect it to a DAV server and you dont have to learn a new software.
Gotta learn about that DAV thing everyone is talking about ig haha
Can you not just backup the pg txn logs (with periodic full backups, purged in accordance with your needs?). That’s a much safer way to approach DBs anyway.
(exclude the online db files from your file system replication)
I recently switched from Joplin to Obsidian for different reasons. I’d prefer something FOSS, but so far I’ve been happy with the transition. Since it works with plain markdown files, it would fit your use case
I’ve switched from Obsidian to Joplin actually, cos syncing was a chore and Joplin is more straightforward imo
Yeah the lack of actual .md files is what killed Joplin for me. Obviously not FOSS but there are self hosted options for Obsidian.
Notesnook is great. Not yet self-hostable (server is open source), but they are working on it.
Logseq. That is all. (Oh, and syncthing…)
I find their paradigm… different and not entirely sure if I like it yet, need to look into it more :)
Do you mind expanding a bit on how you use joplin? I’m curious about the difference you found compared to logseq
I use it just as a simple as possible, instructions on how I setup backups, important thing about container’s config, etc etc. I find it easier to just have a folder “Server” and put each container in a separate note or folder. It’s too much thinking about tags, links, pages and all in logseq, notes seem all over the place.
Yep, now, I initially found the daily journal approach a bit strange, but I use this for work as much as personal stuff, so it actually helps…
My suggestion to your usecase would be to keep a page per “thing” ie server / container / etc and then when you make a change you can just say (on that day’s journal page):
‘’ Setup a backup for [[Server X]] and it’s going to [[NAS2]] (for example) ‘’
Then, on either of those 2 pages you’ll automatically see the link back to the journal page, so you’ll know when you did it…
I think you can disable the journal approach if it’s not useful…
But, the important part is, the files underlying the notes you’re making are in plain text with the page name as the filename, whereas with Joplin you could never find the file…
Also, if you modify the file (live) outside of Logseq, it copes with that and refreshes the content onscreen.
And the links are all dynamic… renamed the NAS? Fine, Logseq will reindex all the pages for you…
I would be willing to try it, but the workarounds to get sync on iOS are what makes me not do it
Is Logseq FOSS ?
Why do you need to back up that server data? The great thing about joplin, is that the full content of your notes (and history) is distributed, like a git repo. As long as you have one device left with your notes, everything else can be bootstrapped from there. If your sync server burns down, start a new one and sync your notes to it again.
Genuine question - doesn’t this leave you open to loss of data from database corruption or an app failure (or human error, accidentally deleting a bunch of pages, for example)?
I’ve used “sync as backup” a lot, and run into these kinds of issues (it’s my current OneNote “backup” strategy). I’m just not familiar enough with Joplin to know what risks this exposes.
I think you need to learn more about how databases work. They don’t typically reclaim deleted space automatically for performance reasons. Databases like to write to a single large file they can then index into. Re-writing those files is expensive so left to the DBA (you) to determine when it should be done.
And how are you backing up the database? Just backing up /var/lib/postgres? Or are you doing a pg_dump? If the former then it’s possible your backups won’t be coherent if you haven’t stopped your database and it will contain that full history of deleted stuff. pg_dump would give you just the current data in a way that will apply properly to a new database should you need to restore
You can also consider your backup retention policy. How many backups do you need for how long?
Setup backup hooks with velero and kopia on a HA postres cluster this week. Biggest DB is Lemmy and that shrinks by a factor of 10 using pgdunp with custom archive. Dumping is 100% the way to go!
Similarly I should do this for my sqlite applications, it looks like kopia can’t do incremental backups with them and thinking about it, it makes sebse, likely sane reasons you mentioned.
Seconding what others have already said. You should ABSOLUTELY NOT directly back up /var/lib/postgresql if that’s what you’re doing right now. Instead, use pg_dump: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/backup-dump.html
This should also give you smaller and probably more compressible backup sizes.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters Git Popular version control system, primarily for code HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web NAS Network-Attached Storage nginx Popular HTTP server
3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 10 acronyms.
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Why are you not using the built-in backup system?
Simplenote, Notesnook, Obsidian.
Obsidian sync isn’t free, and it’s easy to violate their license if you mix work and personal notes.
I think Joplin tends to be better than most. If Obsidian was licensed and charged differently I might change my mind.
