I’m completely new to selfhosting but see a lot of potential. I wonder if anyone knows a good way to self host a notetaking app? The point is that I need to access my notes on multiple devices so self hosting them could be a nice idea. I currently use google keep and goodnotes but would like to leave those behind…
I use https://silverbullet.md and love it, it’s a bit more than a note taking app, but it’s definitely worth it.
Logseq + SyncThing-Fork for me. The killer feature I was looking for to switch from Evernote was voice recording support, logseq is the first thing I’ve found that does a decent job of it while having a solid Workflowy-style “bullets all the way down” interface, which I’ve come to appreciate. The mobile app still leaves a lot to be desired, it’s a little clunky with lots of buttons and very limited swipe gestures. Gets the job done anyhow, and the desktop app is amazing.
After trying a bunch, I’m using Obsidian + <your choice of sync plugin> now. Good thing with Obsidian is your notes are ultimately a bunch of plaintext files, so you can do whatever you want with them, and it comes with clients for most platforms.
Another option is Trilium, it is pretty powerful, and has a webapp so as long as you can access a browser, you’ll be able to access your notes. https://github.com/zadam/trilium
Been using Logseq since February and it’s been a game changer. My only gripes are a) inability to access via browsers, and b) lack of a quick note function. Sometimes I still use Keep to jot something down and transfer later. Logseq spends a solid 5+ seconds syncing upon opening, which can feel like an eternity when trying to quickly log something.
For browser, there is a webapp that can be selfhosted. See here https://github.com/logseq/logseq/blob/master/docs/docker-web-app-guide.md
I think you need chromium browsers due to the API they use, but it should work.
+1 for the open source option: Trilium The project is being maintained here: https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes
Trilium. You’ll be glass you tried it.
Are you threatening to nuke my home if I don’t!?
Ooh, typo. I’ll edit it so that those who fulfill these kinds of things know not to glass your home.
Eh, if you want. It’s a rental…
Trilium is an excellent option, however, the original project is no longer maintained. There is a new community fork that is active here: https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes
I’d vote for anytype or obsidian
Anytype has a learning curve, But it has built-in encryption and IPFS syncing provided by the company. The templating system is really slick and the relational aspect is pretty solid.
Obsidian + syncthing fork is a really solid contender. It’s much easier to work with out of the box but the features are a little more generic.
Neither of these are really self-hosted, so much as they are contained in their own ecosystem. You get some measure of higher availability that you have to really work for if you’re really self-hosting a product.
Hm at some point Anytime apps will be configurable for custom servers tho (i assumed they were already but i might have been wrong).
Obsidian also has some interesting sync plugins that dont require syncthing
I use radicals for CalDAV and save notes there together with my calendars. On Android there is jtx Board which let’s you work with them. Sadly on Linux I couldn’t find anything so I started writing something myself but don’t have much time to work on it https://github.com/jeena/JNotes
It’s still in alpha but hoarder is promising
It’s designed to organize bookmarks, but can also support markdown notes with picture (a single picture, not multiple pictures)
Unfortunately at the moment the mobile app is so alpha that doesn’t support creation or editing such notes, only new bookmarks or new photos.
It uses a headless chromium to make screenshots for URLs.
Optionally, can use a bullshit generator like ollama or openai api keys to automatically create a lot of useless tags to each note
Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.
What’s this about Syncthing now?
Dev discontinued the app due to google being difficult to maintain.
Ah damn. Thanks for the info
Resilio sync works great for that since syncthing is on the out. I actually prefer Resilio anyways
Obsidian is not open source but i also think it’s pretty neat.
I’m just using a self hosted git repo with markdown files. I was having trouble finding something open source that I could edit with vim that also had a good mobile solution. I also didn’t want to get locked into a file format that was specific to an app.
Markdown is ubiquitous and I use git all the time as a developer so it was easier to tack something onto an existing workflow. It’s a little janky but at least I won’t be screwed by devs abandoning whatever app I was using.
You can browse the collection on OpenAlternative here: https://openalternative.co/categories/notetaking
Thanks a lot!
I’ve been getting on well with notesnook, the self hosting is in beta right now but its just a docker container. Docs are coming for self hosting in the near future.
The criteria for me when I was looking for a notes app were:
- self hosted
- e2e encrypted
- supports images and other rich media as well as text
- can use markdown for text formatting
- supports mobile as well as some desktop interface
- can make lists with checkable boxes
- background sync
Notesnook hits all of these. I wish it had a dedicated desktop app but that’s something I can just use a browser window for.
Notesnook has a desktop app. Does it not work with self hosted implementation?
I use Joplin on top of Nextcloud.
Nextcloud is a really good all-in-one solution for self hosting data
Welcome to the rabbit hole of selfhosted note-taking apps. https://selfh.st/apps/?tag=Note-Taking
Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a journey. You’ll probably end up going through a few of these options until you find one that works for you and fits your workflow.
I use Joplin, no complaints.
