Preferably an application that you can sync and save. Not sure what alternatives are safe in terms of privacy and security.
I’m a huge fan of Joplin. It runs on everything and syncs to either your or their cloud. Been using it for a few years now.
2nd for Joplin. Love it to bits. It has its quirks, but they’re ones I can live with. The sync support is pretty awesome.
Been playing with Logseq recently as well. Logseq is more for knowledge management/brain dump kind of notetaking, but it’s really cool that it’s so flexible. It helps that I really like using lists in the first place
Does Joplin have a search function within notes? And it is fully FOSS, yes?
I’m not sure what EXACTLY you’d be looking for from a search feature as I’m mostly a light user myself, but there’s a search option which will search the contents of all your notes. I can’t tell you how robust it is, but it does have exclusion (desiredTerm -excludeTerm) search at least, and there’s standard Find/Replace functionality once you’re in the specific note.
Joplin itself is AGPL. Unfortunately, Joplin Server is under “JOPLIN SERVER PERSONAL USE LICENSE”.
While I really like Joplin, I’m thinking of making the switch to something fully open source.
not sure I follow your comment. Joplin Server would be relevant when you sync your notes through them, no? Or how does it affect the app?
You don’t need the server. It happily works with storing notes as files and syncing them with syncthing.
Joplin server is a separate product that is for if you want to run a web server to sync and collaborate on notes.
I used to work at video game company and Joplin was the code name for one of our projects, so now every time I see that word, I instantly think of that game. I think it was dragon age lol. Anyway, if I can get past that PTSD I might check out this editor! lol /s
Just to add to the noise… I’m shocked that Obsidian is not the number one app that people are talking about. Didn’t even know there were so many other great options, to be honest.
Edit: it’s because it’s not open source. The plugins all have to be open source, and it is free as in beer. I’m keeping this comment up.
It is closed source, after all.
Respect for keeping the comment online so others learn from your mistake.
I just use whatever text editor I have and make MD files synced with Syncthing. On mobile I use Markor.
I’ve tried several different methods, and as much as I try to be organised, I feel pretty good with my folder of files.
Your post 🤝 mine. It’s a mess but it’s my mess!
Simple, platform agnostic, just works.
I like Notesnook and Standard Notes. Joplin is another pretty good option, but you have to manually enable E2EE in the settings.
Notesnook. There’s quite a lot of private, secure, foss note taking apps, take your pick. Just check what features they have, eg some of them have no encryption at rest
I’m excited to see they’re going fully open source. Looks like the last steps to making the sync server self-hostable are in the works. Do you use their paid service? If so: any complaints or caveats?
I do use their paid service, though I’m considering cancelling to switch to using a markdown editor with syncthing for notes. I wouldn’t have any complaints about the paid service specifically. I’d say it’s a fair enough deal if you can get it on a sale. My reasons for wanting to switch are because I don’t like using cloud services when unnecessary, and to a lesser extent I’d prefer a native app over an electron app
org-roam
Cherrytree, no question. You can make hierarchical lists/notes, hyperlink to files, folders, websites and other nodes (lists). You can also insert tables and images in your entries and format text. The whole thing is saved as a single file and you can choose for it to be encrypted if you want. I sync it between devices using Syncthing. Both are FOSS, private and secure. Cherrytree’s UI doesn’t look especially modern but is very effective and you can make your own themes for it in the preferences if you want to glam it up a bit. You can pretty much use it as a wiki for your entire life. In fact, if I could only have one application on my computer it would be this!
Believe it or not… Vimwiki (&& syncthing for synchronisation across my machines)
it’s rather no nonsense idk. I’m not even a vim wizard, I just know the bare basics
Markor on Android, MarkText on desktop. I sort notes in category folders and use Syncthing to keep devices… well, synced.
QuillPad on Android and I don’t have a favorite on desktop yet
QOwnNotes for me. Also such a catchy name. Seriously though, ignore the stupid name, just give it a try.
Zim
I like Org Mode, but that’s sort of… Begrudgingly. I like any FOSS notes app better than any closed source notes app. That’s not even me having strong feeling about FOSS (which I do), it’s more about… I am very picky about note apps. Org Mode (with org-roam) does the best job of getting out of my way and letting me write and resurface notes.
I’d recommend Anytype if they’d ever add a pure black theme — the low contrast gray text on gray background hurts my eyes and I won’t be able to use it until they make some color changes.
Notepad++, local files
