Any recommendations for a self hosted note taking app that runs on everything with a screen and is designed for multi device usage?
Also a modern, powerful and puristic UI would be a must have to compete with Keep.
I am looking for this app every now and then but am always disappointed by the choices.
I recently tried Joplin on Android, but was very dissatisfied with the usabilty.
The FOSS self hosted alternatives for smart home and porn are better than the commercial ones, can’t be that hard for notes, can it?
self hosted alternatives for smart home and porn
How does self hosted porn even work and how am I the first person to notice that sitting there and mention it?
No way!
try obsidian.md
this is my current solution; I use Obsidian to manage my notes and I sync the folder with Syncthing. I still use Google Keep though for its whiteboard tool; is there a better app for that?
Have you tried the Excalidraw plugin for obsidian? This may be closer to what you’re looking for. Otherwise, would the canvas feature do what you need?
Haven’t tried the whiteboard tool in Google keep (didn’t even know there was one), but the Excalidraw plugin for Obsidian should cover almost any whiteboard use case I can think of. A bit more limited but also good is the native Canvas plugin in Obsidian.
Nextcloud notes is the easiest I have found.
Honestly, the closest I have found is https://github.com/baggachipz/tinylist It looks like keep, can share and edit files with other people, which is something a lot of things are lacking and I use it extensively for that. Also, I don’t like the recommendations of using MD apps/files for a simple checklist/random notes app. That’s way too much for something this simple and I use Obsidian as well. But they serve much different purposes.
It allows you to host your own database for it, and there is a guide on it.
Was going to make the same suggestion. You can try it out at https://tinylist.app
This is awesome! Thanks!
No dockerhub image is a dealbreaker. Especially for Unraid
Looks like you can host your own database and tie the web app to that. I’m going to try it later today with my unRAID server.
Memos is self hostable and is “cross platform” by nature of being web-based only. There is a 3rd party mobile app MoeMemos but it doesn’t add anything special over the quite excellent progressive web app for plain Memos. Of course you can’t use it offline since it’s web-based. But I have an always on VPN connection between my phone and my server so home so it’s fine.
Notesnook is recently open source, but as of yet not self hostable. It is on the roadmap though. This one is privacy/security oriented and has native apps for just about everything as well as a web interface.
Quillpad is the closest interface-wise to Keep, but it can only sync with Nextcloud and I can’t run that beast on my old hardware. Too clunky and slow.
I’ve been on this hunt for awhile but I realized that I use Keep differently than other folks on the same journey. It’s mostly a list focused service for me. Sometimes with check boxes, sometimes not. Most of the FOSS not taking apps can use some markdown, but that is a bear to use on mobile without a quick way to inject a checkbox. Memos has a button for a few formatting items on each “post” and thankfully one is the Markdown checkbox shortcut.
For notes, personal knowledge management, and everything else I use and love Obsidian.
I really like Quillpad on mobile. I have my own Nextcloud instance and it works great. I only wish that Nextcloud Notes/Quillpad allowed for a few more levels in its notebook/notes hierarchy for better categorization.
I’ve tried Obsidian/Logseq with Folder Sync As a companion app and just didn’t like the clunkiness of it.
100% agree on clunkiness of homebrew sync option for Obsidian. I ended up paying for their sync service, which is expensive for what it is. But I use it a ton and it’s saved me so much time that I feel it’s worth it. And it’s about as flawless a sync option as their is.
I would also use Quillpad if they offered another sync option.
Nextcloud notes is really nice.
There’s also Benotes - https://github.com/fr0tt/benotes
I’m really interested to see what you end up picking. I’m going through another phase of “find a new note taking tool” too. I can give you a few recommendations to try:
- Obsidian is great on desktop, and okay on mobile. But it’s really slow sometimes to open so not great for quick notes. I have a Tasker task/shortcut on my home screen that prompts me for a quick note and saves it to a md file in the vault directory without ever opening the obsidian app. Sync also isn’t free unless you use a 3rd party plugin. There’s a ton of plugins and some seem great, but there’s no real built in security to protect you from malicious plugins afaik.
- Joplin is okay, it has a great web clipper browser plugin. Syncing (at least over webdav) is painfully slow and doesn’t happen in the background. The UI UX is pretty clunky but has been getting improved. Exporting from Joplin to markdown is annoying and not in a format usable by other tools. I ended up writing a script that uses the Joplin rest API to export all my notes with correct file names, frontmatter, etc. Otherwise they’re random uuids and the metadata is at the bottom of the file.
- Standard Notes seems alright so far. I’m pretty sure it’s still electron, but hasn’t felt too slow to me. It’s the only app I’ve tried that has true end to end encryption where the notes are encrypted locally on your devices, not just in transit. Self hosting the sync server still requires a paid subscription to unlock most of the features like uploading files or using any note type other than plain text.
- logseq scratches the emacs org mode itch, but doesn’t have a mobile app out yet. It’s an outliner by default too. I haven’t used it much but it seems like it gets as much attention as obsidian does.
- JTX Board, kind of a weird one but it’s mobile only and uses caldav to create notes using the VJOURNAL format. I’m testing it with nextcloud. The app is pretty fast and usable offline so great for quick notes. It does have a lot of limitations though like not really being able to add large images or attachments. I also haven’t found a good desktop or web app that uses the VJOURNAL standard.
- TiddlyWiki - I really want to like it, it works offline and has several different methods of syncing changes. I haven’t been able to get a good mobile syncing experience though, and it doesn’t have a dedicated mobile app.
I juggle a lot of different note apps because I’m still looking for “the one”, so always interested in seeing other’s opinions!
Logseq has an iOS app here, and an Android app at their GitHub releases.
I’m a big fan of Logseq. I use Syncthing to sync a folder between my desktop and phone and it works great. Tagging, everything is in markdown, and it’s easy to navigate around.
Im using nextcloud notes and it works perfectly fine in browser/android app. Doesnt look good like google keep, but had no issues with it. Recently I also started using memos, it looks like super simple private twiter and it has awesome android/ios app called MoeMemos. Not sure about encription, but it looks amazing
Mind sharing what were your issues with Joplin?
My only issue is that it does not have any widgets on Android. So, I use Nextcloud Notes when I need that. But Joplin is actually great. You can self host a joplin server or sync using a Nextcloud server. It supports advanced markdown and I like the UI as well.
You can try Bookstack, but it will work on a web browser only. Another option is Obsidian, but I think only the apps are FOSS, the backend is not.
Obsidian isn’t FOSS at all, sadly.
Though, they’re not the data-hungry kind of proprietary, or use some proprietary format. It’s basically just a really fancy markdown editor with plugin support. No telemetry, no accounts, and sync can be self-hosted.
I like Joplin too, and I use it when I can instead of Keep. It supports a pretty good range of synchronization mechanisms. But it doesn’t have the collaboration capability of Keep, so when I’m doing shared shopping lists or to do lists, I still end up using Keep.
I think Joplin is the best too, but I wish they will rewrite their app using Tauri or flutter for better performance and native app integration. Feature wise it is the best one that is FOSS.
Right, obsidian didn’t appeal to me since it’s proprietary.
I probably will look into setting up a Joplin server and maybe write a frontend for it. Also didn’t try frontend options on PC yet.
Until now I only tried the Android app and while it looked quite mature, I didn’t get quite the UX from it I was anticipating.
Some things that bothered me:
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Creating a note requires 2 clicks, 1 should be fine.I want to start writing and decide whether its a todo later.
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Tag management. In Keep #tags are parsed from text automatically. Although there is a conflict with markdown syntax, having to issue 3 clicks to add a tag seems bothersome
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Tags are not shown in the main menu, but are another view.
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Didn’t figure out what notebooks are supposed to be, but i guess some kind of directory system. Don’t see the point when having a tag system. In the end they are too prominent in the UI.
But the synchronization options and markdown capabilities are a big plus. mardown is actually a feature missing in keep.
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If you like obsidian but want a FOSS alternative, you might want to try out emacs org-mode and org-roam.
Here is an example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyhPmypHDEw
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=AyhPmypHDEw
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Might not the thing you are looking for, but I tried to find a replacement for Keep a year ago and somehow stuck with a todo.txt (http://todotxt.org/) file. It can be edited in a normal text editor but I use Markor and todo.txt on Android and Sleek on desktop. Sync is fine via your preferred sync tool.
Anything wrong with Nextcloud Notes?
I’m really enjoying Otterwiki. Everything is saved as markdown, attachments are next to the markdown files in a folder, and version control is integrated with a git repo. Everything lives in a directory and the application runs from a docker container.
It’s the perfect amount of simplicity and is really just a UI on top of fully portable standard tech.
