Technology

I'm sort of the opposite. I liked Joplin but found myself needing the features of Obsidian. I do know what you mean about Obsidian getting in the way. While it's easy to start using it, there is a bit of a learning curve to using it well. And it can be a little quirky-annoying at times.

I think that's one reason there are so many software offerings in this space. There's a wide range of preferences when it comes to features vs simplicity.

For me, Obsidian is just about perfect without any extensions, but I'm also glad it is extensible if you need them. The configurability and customization, while using standard markup, and keeping the vault storage sizes small were the major pros for me.

Some other products I've tried in this space were just too much for me. Huge save files, overdone UXs, and proprietary formats. Joplin and Obsidian were both a breath of fresh air when I found them.

I switched to Joplin after dumping the fully enshittified Evernote earlier this year. Joplin’s entry and reading interface is straight up terrible, and I sorely miss the auto-ocr search from Evernote, but it’s overall layout basic enough to be usable.

Logseq is the only note taking system that has clicked with me, by lowering the mental overhead at the time of adding notes. I just throw it in there without any considerations while still feeling like it's not going to get lost. Later I may revisit the day's journal and add tags or connect other information, move a block into its own page, etc.

In Logseq, everything is a nested list. This feels like a limitation, but I’ve been preferring it. The decision is made for you: you’re going to jot this information down as a list. So then you just start writing it.

I really appreciate you posting this. I'm a long-time Obsidian user, and an Evernote user before that, and I never "got" Logseq. I just couldn't understand what people saw in an app that didn't let you "write" anything. I've tried to start using Logseq so many times and just given up because the interface made no sense.

Thanks to your comment I finally get it! I prefer to be using something open-source, so I'm going to give Logseq another go, now that I finally understand it, and see how that approach feels.

Do you know cherryTree and if yes, how it compares to the two?

Oh boy. Weve all been there.

Stay hydrated.

I'm just switching from TiddlyWiki to Obsidian lol. Have not looked at Logseq though.

There's lots of alternate, free and open source syncing solutions. I use syncthing myself.

Like another person said, many ways to sync. I use Resilio personally and love it.

Try Notion. I changed from OneNote to it and don't regret it.

Joplin stores its files inside a database. Obsidian stores all notes as individual plaintext Markdown files.

In the first instance, that's clearly more future-proof and robust - your notes are immediately available in any application without a layer of abstraction. You can't have a single file corrupt and destroy all your notes.

I vastly prefer it for that reason. I want to know these notes are still going to work fine in 10 years, and be easily accessible.

I use Joplin for a simple notes app mostly for my phone but I do have it on my desktop and sync. What I do not use it for is my desktop notes collection which ia several thousand notes pages some quite big. I use Zim for that. It is a desktop Wiki.

I do not use Obdidian but it seems like knowledge base and linking is what people rave about. These are the ways in which I use Zim for example.

Write 4000 notes

Get a new device

Sync

Die waiting

I do miss joplin, but not cuz it looked good or cuz it was good at syncing

Better table editing than many other markdown editors, but I wouldn't call it very good for a note taking app.

This. Foam is awesome and it's what I use.

Also I really like how it's just a folder full of documents so if I need something that foam can't do (like a proper spreadsheet with formulas) I can just use another product for that and save the file in the same folder alongside my Foam notes.

The only thing is it's not a complete package. You do need to combine it with other VSCode extensions and a sync platform. Also VSCode doesn't run (well) on a phone.

Commenting to remind myself to check this out. Thanks.

Check out this plugin for it!

https://www.make.md/

It's goal is to lower the barrier to entry for obsidian substantially.

As for different use cases, you can create different "vaults" for different applications. For example, I have a vault for work, and a vault for personal. They're basically just different folders on your computer, but it helps keep differentiation.

There really isn't. I hunted for a while before I gave up and bought an android tablet for hand writing notes.

Check out Anytype it's pretty much just an open source Notion, I like it a lot

I'm a happy Notesnook user, here. And they have tables.