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?
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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.
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.
That’s a fantasy I’m afraid. Just use Keep.
Why’s that? Keep looks and feels like a pretty basic note taking app, I don’t even see any of the usual google “secret sauce” that would make it better, smarter, or more embedded… what is it about keep that you find inimitable?
Of all the open source note apps I tried over a year ago, they didn’t seem that great. I’m also not interested in self hosting.
I like that Keep let’s you quickly create lists, let’s you add images, you can markup images, you can pin notes, search is fast and it all backs up to the cloud seamelessy. And I can result access it on any device.
In general I think there’s a lot to be said for Google services. Drive is great, put anything in there and have it everywhere and easily share.
Photos is indispensable because it’s so tig byhtly integrated with Android: take a photo and instantly it’s backed up to the cloud. No worry about losing my phone because my memories will be in the cloud.
I use Calendar all the time to manage events and reminders and it works perfectly. Also syncs to my calendar on Mint perfectly. It’s fast, easy to use, let’s you get in and out.
Google Messages now uses RCS which is great, is designed very well, and you can also send and receive messages from the web if you want. Plus it integrates nicely with Phone, Meet and Contacts.
It’s really hard to beat. And this is all free, although I pay €20 a year for the larger storage plan.
You can replicate this in Nextcloud but then you need to self host, set up incoming open ports, sorry about being ddoss’d or hacked, have either a large HDD or external HDD which may fail at any time. And it won’t integrate with Android as well.
I get people’s concern with privacy but I don’t think it’s as big a deal as people make out and end up throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I think you got lost because self-hosting is very much the point of this community :)
The Keep features you enumerated are pretty rudimentary, and none of that requires the sheer engineering power of a Google to be delivered securely and effectively. Take something like quillpad for instance, it shares a lot of UI paradigms with Keep, but expands in every direction to make the note taking experience and keeping them organized better. So indeed, Google Apps as a captive ecosystem is hard to beat, but resisting the urge to put all your eggs in their basket has some enormous perks which people with experience value a lot.
I’ve had success with Standard Notes personally. I’ve just used the basic default server, but I know you can self host it. Best of luck!!
I second Standard Notes. My focus is very geared towards privacy and security and Standard Notes excels at that as well.
Oh, I didn’t realize it was open source from the look of the website. But it actually is! And it’s active. https://github.com/standardnotes/app
I will check it out.
Automattic, who owns Wordpress, also owns Standard Notes.
Do you have a receipt for that?
Oops, I got confused with Simplenote, guess it’s a new recommendation then.
Gotcha, thanks for the clarification
I don’t even need it to be (self)hosted, it can be an offline Android app that looks and behaves like Keep, but is not made by Google.
So notes arranged together, tick boxes, reminders, dark theme.
that would be only limited to one device though. screenshot looks good.
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.
Hey, that TinyList.app is actually very good but unfortunately it’s missing a quite crucial feature - reminders… Nevertheless I will be watching its career with great interest.
Have a look at Obsidian. It runs on a variety of devices, you can sync either with their system, or pretty much anything else, as it just stores your notes as markdown files, and you can arrange notes like that with the canvas system.
I actually had Obsidian installed and it looks like something I’d like if I spend more time on a computer but nowadays I’m mostly using phone for Internet activity. I couldn’t get canvas to work on my phone for some reason. It also lack reminders which is wuite crucial for me.
Fair point about reminders, that’s not something I use it for, so I didn’t think of it. Canvas seems to be working now, and there are regularly push updates, so one of those might have fixed it.
There’s also Benotes - https://github.com/fr0tt/benotes
I’ve been using Trilium (https://github.com/zadam/trilium). There are desktop clients, no mobile clients. However the web interface works well enough for me that I don’t mind. The notes update in near-realtime when you make edits through the web app on multiple machines (assuming internet connectivity of course).
If you’re already self-hosting NextCloud you might want to look NextCloud Notes as well.
I have been using anytype.io for a few months and love it. Best thing is it’s “local first” so stored on your own devices, just synched online.
What type of file uses? MD?
Yes MD can be used or just enter text into their pro forma objects
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.
I use a basic markdown editor on android called Markor. Is Logseq the same? Or is it more than that?
Definitely more. It’s geared to note taking, with hashtags, wiki-like linking, and loads of other features. The main page is here.
i made the same migration from markor (files in a folder) to logseq. there’s a lot to be gained - always-preview alone is a game changer - but on mobile the visibility of the keyboard can be fiddly. once in a while you’ll feel like you’re in vi, it has such a mind of its own. but i’m not planning to go back
Is there any mobile app for it?
Yeah, it’s on the Apple app store, and the Android version is available directly from their GitHub release page as an APK, or on F-Droid.
Obsidian! Getting it to use cloud synced folders is a little tricky but it is a fabulous little program.
Seconding Obsidian - it’s not FOSS, but the files are just markdown, nothing special, so you’re not locked in. Self hosting is real easy, you just have to Sync the files, and everything follows. I use syncthing between my laptop and phone and am having a good time with it.
Whoops, should have noticed your endorsement of syncthing before posting a comment mentioning this.
While Obsidian does save to individual files, the Markdown they use seems to be a superset of everyday Markdown. Eg, being able to use callouts (eg, Note, Warning, Info, etc) and embedded linking of notes.
The automatic backlinks are fantastic. And I’ve discovered that if I rename a note, all links to that note get updated as well. So no need to worry about orphaning pages.
I’ve added a handful of plugins as well. Off the top of my head, one is a dynamic table of contents (for that page), another helps to compose/edit Markdown tables.
Available but not FOSS. Gotta watch the license if you use it for any work.
I’m curious what licensing issues you would run into with obsidian?
Not a huge one, but it is only free for personal and non-profit use. “If your notes contain content directly related to work projects or processes for a greater-than-one-person company, then you require a commercial license.”
Since it is on flathub and they don’t really nag you, I am sure there are people who aren’t really aware.
Good to know thanks for the info. I’ll have to have a bit of a dig myself.
Also a big fan of Obsidian!
For syncing, one option is to use syncthing.
I know someone (whose geek creds are admittedly well beyond mine) who is also a fan. He uses GitHub to sync his notes.
Obsidian is so so good.
I don’t even mind to pay for their sync service to support them. You can even encrypt your vault (notebook) with your own key.
+1 for Quillpad 🌞
Hmm, latest commit 7 years ago… It was also not easy to find the “upstream” repo, the link on the website 404s. https://github.com/cognirel/Quillpad-Server
It’s here:
I didn’t even know there was a standalone server, the app doesn’t even seem to support it anymore, just Nextcloud.
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 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.
I use Nextcloud with Carnet. I haven’t used Keep in years so I don’t know the current features but when I made the switch to Carnet it was very comparable.
On Nextcloud it is an app you install separately. For your phone you’ll find Carner on f-droid. Sadly there is no client for iOS. Link https://www.getcarnet.app/
I want this sooooo bad.
