Yes, I know that the are dozens of notes apps. I’m looking for recommendations based on a few features that I like:
- nice design (including color coding)
- easy checklists
- sharing - this one is key. I use a shared shopping list and we both need to add and edit.
- pinning and archiving (hidden notes)
I don’t mind running it from my homelab server, but that is not a requirement. Does anyone use a notes app that you love? Let me know!
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Joplin + Syncthing has been great for me. Sync across multiple devices with no third party in between. However the “sharing” in this context is limited to other installations of the entire db. To my knowledge, there’s no way to say “sync these notes with my wife, and these others with my phone only” etc.
Last i looked into it, joplin had a bug which ment syncthing didnt work . Can’t remember the details but the solution was pinning an old version.
I am much much happier with markor notes + syncthing.
Super sinple, 100 % foss, sync what you want .
I guess it’s been a while then. Syncthing works perfectly for me, with the official latest version in Arch, the older version in Debian, the flatpak on Ubuntu, and the forked version on Android, syncing all my Joplin data all over the place.
I don’t much care for the file format though. The appeal of Git Journal is strong.
Syncthing will be discontinued this month. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002
Syncthing on Android will be discontinued, and there’s a fork already, which as I said above, I use.
Oh nice, thanks.
Vikunja seems to check all your boxes
Dokuwiki + wireguard would be different but satisfy since if those needs, try it out of you have time.
Orgzly
I just use NextCloud Notes. Categories are just sub folders, so you can create a Shared category and just share it in Nextcloud.
“I WANT ALL THE CLOUD THINGS RIGHT NOW FOR FREE AND I REFUSE TO COMPROMISE 🦶🦶🦶🦶”
That’s what these requests read like.
Look, these people have a product with a good UI and sharing for a reason. Anything else you find that doesn’t hit that mark is because of that. Make concessions for what you really need, build your own, or continue stomping around about it.
Or, you know, they could keep using Google Keep.
There’s a corner of the FOSS community that is all like “you should jump ship on literally any software that is not clean and pure of corporate interests” but also “can’t blame FOSS software for not being good unless you’re in the process of making your own”. It’s… kinda confusing.
I pay for all of the software that I use, and encourage others to do so as well. That’s not what this is at all. Pretty much the opposite effect.
I paid for Evernote for years, got a double helping of enshitification.
I pay for Google Workspace. They will Play eventually sunset keep even though I pay for their services because that’s just what they do.
If you don’t host it yourself, they can and will take it away from you.
Yes. Yes. And Yes!
Yep. You can pay with your data, you can pay a corporation, or you can pay open source developers directly.
If someone can’t afford to pay, or doesn’t believe in it, that’s fine, and that’s part of what open source is, which is amazing. But if you’re in a position to support foss developers, and they created something useful for you, I think it’s the least we can do.
And yet you are not OP
It literally is…
Yes, it is?
Your rant doesn’t make sense. Asking for suggestions because you’re not OK with being spied on (especially when you’re perfectly willing to absorb the hosting costs yourself or pat for a service that isn’t hostile) is perfectly valid behavior.
Don’t worry, that guy wins most useless comment. You’re post was great.
They’re just asking for recommendations, calm down…
Yell louder while providing nothing useful to say.
Things exist. Things you may not know about.
Questions exist.
They are used to ask questions.
There’s only one person stomping around in this post. It isn’t OP.
This is a very cool project! With a few minor developments this could meet my needs
Upvotes because the devs are good. Sharing does not work well if at all though.
sharing - this one is key. I use a shared shopping list and we both need to add and edit.
Get jotting with your friends in seconds: https://pad.disroot.org/
I use standard notes.
What benefits do you find in particular that make it better than hosting yourself?
I believe you can host your data if you prefer
Oh great. Sorry that I didn’t dig in too much further than the front page of the website.
planka
You might like Blinko. It seems similar to Keep to me. I set it up for awhile, but it didn’t give me anything beyond what I already have with Joplin, so couldn’t justify keeping it or transitioning to it. Here’s a video from DB Tech on the set up process: Self-host Blinko with docker
Wow, this has some neat features and it looks great on any size screen. I will be following this for sure
Development is pretty rapid too. I didn’t track the features on the updates, but new versions were getting pushed regularly. No mobile app which was kind of a bummer, but the progressive web app integration was pretty good. It felt like a mobile app.
Edit: I forgot to mention the note sharing function, it shares a URL of the note that allows the recipient to view and edit the note through the URL. It was a little janky when compared with sharing a note between two users using themselves app, but it still worked pretty decently.
For note apps I can recommend:
- sharing - this one is key. I use a shared shopping list and we both need to add and edit.
i use and love notally but you can’t share/sync (export/import wouldn’t satisfy the above requirement)
I also found a fork called NotallyX, which includes import functions from Keep and Evernote. Pretty useful for someone migrating.
- amount of backups to keep
also is a nice addition but i like the fact that notally is just 1.9mb. So i keep using notally and delete a dozen backups from time to time :/
yeah, just looking through the notes, it looks like both devs care a lot about their project and just have different visions for what a “Complete” notes app should look like. It’s nice to see, because sometimes when you see a fork of a project it’s because someone abandoned it or there is some kind of community drama, but that doesn’t seem to be the case afaik.
I was using Joplin for a while… Self hosted their server. On two occasions it screwed up on me and wouldn’t load my folders… Luckily I had backups but it was still frustrating. I don’t recommend them purely because the notes are stored in a custom format instead of just plain text files.
My favorite way of doing notes now is with git, currently using a free private repo on gitlab.
Just clone the repo on whatever PC I need them and it has backups and version control.
Then use GitJournal on my phone.
It’s perfect for me. I love it.
Nice, I’ve been doing something similar, using the obsidian-git plug-in for Obsidian and the Working Copy app on iOS.
Obsidian is my front-end, and it saves the notes in markdown files in a git-synced folder on my computer.
The plug-in pushes and pulls automatically, and Working Copy does the same thing on iOS, just before opening the Obsidian app on iOS.
I had similar experiences with Joplin. Would randomly lose quite a lot of data, and exporting to other formats was a hassle. I also cannot recommend.
This feels a lot like Nextcloud Notes but the editor seems a bit clunky (like the web editor).
It’s much more powerful though. Based on Org-Mode.
Markor is absolutely amazing. Pair it with syncthing.
Find it will mentained on play, froid and github https://github.com/gsantner/markor
Syncthing is discontinued this month. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002
Nextcloud Notes?
I was skeptical at first but have found it the most useable of all the ones I tried out.
