It's official: note taking app with 0 advantages over just plain ass notes synced via cloud signs death warrant.
For real, FOSS software that saves to a file folder and does all of this exists. They are just chasing us into their arms.
this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
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If you're looking for a name drop, Joplin does nicely for my uses.
I also use Joplin!
I've heard Joplin is good. Also Obsidian is apparently amazing with plug-ins. I'm leaning towards Obsidian myself. But between Google and MS, I figured Keep and Evernote would've been impossible to challenge.
+1 for Obsidian, I wrangled long with the fact it is not open source, but since it handles file with markdown formatting and saves them openly accessible, I gave it a try anyway. Really like it but will definitely never be open to pay a subscription for it. One time payment, absolutely!
I self host a lot of shit, but after almost a year of using Obsidian I finally paid for their sync feature for one reason: iCloud sync to iOS is painfully slow.
I was sometimes waiting 30-45 seconds to jot down a note just waiting on the app to open with iCloud sync as my backend. Now, with Obsidian sync, the app is ready-to-go in seconds.
Now if you're only going to be using on desktop, I would definitely consider a git-repository based sync, but if you're gonna use mobile I'd recommend you at least consider Obsidian Sync
I already have Syncthing up and running so its not an issue for me right now and I don't need to share notes.
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Thanks! That is good to know. I will check it out. I was thinking of creating one that allows you to BYOC. I need something that is free, cross platform, auto saves, and can keep offline copies. All for just basic note taking.
No way in hell I am going to pay a ton of money to store a bunch of text. I don’t even need any of the advanced functionality, not even images, just a dumping ground for text notes I take on my phone.
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I haven't used Evernote in at least a decade, I didn't even think they were still around.
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Evernote still exists?
Lol, tried them about 10 years ago, wasn't impressed.
They're still around, and think this is a good move? So many other, WAY better notebook apps.
MS OneNote works well on all platforms (except Linux!) for several years now, and blows Evernote away (it's my Achilles heel).
And now apps like Joplin, Obsidian, etc, are closing fast on OneNote (and even better in some ways), and can sync with tools like Syncthing.
Obsidian + ExcaliDraw is mind-blowing. The integration is absurdly good! It can even render entire PDFs for highlighting (a bit slow but usable).
Only thing I don’t like about Obsidian is the UI. It’s just kinda clunky and obtuse. I find navigating around consistently confusing. Which sounds like a small gripe but if I can’t just open up a note taking app and get rolling I’m just less likely to take them in the first place.
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Having used both OneNote & Obsidian extensively, OneNote is like a children's colouring book in comparison IMO.
Not that it's bad, it serves plenty well for most people.
I think OneNote is potentially a good middle ground between something like Obsidian and something much simpler like Google Keep, but for me it adds complexity without adding enough functionality to justify it.
Not an unfair comparison, though I find Obsidian overly complex/convoluted. But I think that comes with the territory when your design philosophy is very open extensibility and using standard document types rather than a proprietary binary format like ON.
Plus OneNote is 20 years old now, was extended (after MS bought it) to integrate with SharePoint (maybe it was designed that way, I don't remember), so really is a 20th century piece of software. There are add-ons that greatly extend its capability (Onetastic, Gem, etc). So in a business environment the full desktop app with SharePoint is pretty impressive. To it's credit, I have 15+ years and gigabytes of data in it, and have never (knock on wood) lost anything, moving it across perhaps a dozen systems.
All that said... I'm moving to Joplin, lol. Trying to get away from dependence on apps I don't control (and I want a notebook that works on Linux too).
To sync to mobile devices, OneNote requires Onedrive (or setup your own SharePoint server, uggh). At least with Obsidian/Joplin, etc, I get to manage how things sync. And if I'm happy with the features in my current setup, I never have to change anything. Never know when MS will fuck up Onedrive sync, requiring a version of OneNote I can't run, or has issues.
Ugh, Syncthing. I bet it works well for syncing between Linux boxes or even MacOS, but when I tried using it to sync between Windows and a couple of Android devices, it was incredibly clunky. I found it confusing and obtuse even though I've been a software engineer for over 20 years.
Rant over.
I keep hundreds of gigs in sync between 4 windows computers and about 5 phones, including iOS (on iOS it's Möbius). SyncTrayzor for Windows is really helpful.
It rarely has issues, when it does it notifies you of a sync conflict (it's always a result of me doing something that's bad practice, such as disabling sync for weeks on one device and making a bunch of changes).
Give it a try again. I especially recommend Syncthing-Fork for Android, it moves sync conditions into the individual sync jobs/folders. This enables me to have my DCIM folder sync to home, regardless of network or power conditions, so I never lose pictures, while allowing me to set my media sync folder (music, videos, etc from my home desktop) to only sync while on wifi, and other jobs to only run while connected to power and wifi.
Resilio is another great sync tool, works differently than Syncthing by using the bittorrent protocol. It has Sync-on-demand, which is great for grabbing media from my desktop from anywhere, Syncthing would only permit Syncthing the entire folder, with Resilio you can browse the share from your phone, pick files, and have it sync them right now.
I'd use Resilio more, just for that feature, but it kills memory on a phone because it keeps the sync database in ram when running, while Syncthing relies on files for indexing. So ST is my daily driver, and load up Resilio when I need to grab specific files.
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MS OneNote lags 200-300ms on M1 pro CPU...
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Joplin is a solid alternative. It even supports latex through a plugin. You can edit your notes in an external editor which is awesome for an Emacs fanatic like me. Combine that with a great Android app + syncthing, I don't know what more one can need.
I have been using Joplin with Dropbox sync. Syncs between my Desktop, Android, and iOS devices. Switched from Google Keep a few months back. Great app.
Try using Syncthing instead of Dropbox. Direct sync between all devices, encrypted, no cloud required.
iOS version is called Möbius.
I was using nextcloud at first but kept having sync issues. I use syncthing to sync my Libre office docs and it always disconnects on my Android. I bought Mobious a few months back to sync photos from my iPhone and it always disconnected. So I switched to photosync. So in other words syncthing hasn't really been reliable for me. I use a free Dropbox account and haven't had any issues since. And the best thing about Joplin desktop is there is a Backup plugin, so if my Dropbox ever went down, I still have multiple Backups saved locally and on my Proton Drive.
yup, do the same and its ALL encrypted so no snoop snoop by anybody.
I hit the 50 cap, then deleted about 30 unnecessary notes, and STILL couldn't create more notes.
I replaced it with Draft Notes.
I mean, it doesn't 50 active notes so I guess they decided that creation of 50 notes is what's allowed regardless of how many active you have left.
...or it's a bug, but generally I tend not to give businesses the benefit of the doubt.
Best thing about Evernote was its web clipping extensions... anyone use one that's as good or better..?
joplin
+1 for Joplin (https://joplinapp.org/) with Nextcloud / WebDAV for sync. I use the web clipper all the time.
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Old news, they already have implemented it around 2 weeks ago. I moved to LogSeq, it's a bit more complicated than Evernote but it's a really good alternative. Open source too.
Don't forget to delete your account on your way out.
Evernote used “Subscription model”. It hurt itself in its confusion.
And here I was a sucker for using Simplemote this whole time. I missed out on my opportunity to get charged
Since no one has recommended, I would recommend Notesnook. Open Source app with Encryption. They are also planning to open source the Sync (afaik) part too.
Another option is AnyType.
Another option is Notion (not open Source/encrypted).
Notesnook.
Standard Notes is a encrypted service alternative to Evernote. It's a mature product with more than six year in the market.
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The article is from November 29 and the change is to take effect on December 4, which is a bit late for this post.
Hey everyone. I own a Synology and run evernote on it. Can someone recommend a good note app that isn't Synology Note station that I can run on my Synology? I don't really want my notes on the internet so OneDrive is not an option. Thank you for your recommendations.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The notetaking app said that this change will be applicable for all new and existing free users starting December 4.
Going forward, new and existing Free users will have a maximum of fifty notes and one notebook per account.
These limits refer to the number of notes and notebooks a user can have in their account at one time: you can always delete unwanted content to remain below the threshold,” the company, owned by Milan-based Bending Spoons, said.
At that time, a spokesperson told TechCrunch that the notetaking app has “been unprofitable for years and the situation was unsustainable in the long term.”
While Ian Smalls, who was appointed Evernote CEO in 2018, managed to get the company to $100 million in recurring revenue, the app has fallen behind newer competitors like Notion.
For users who might want to look for alternatives, Notion, Microsoft OneNote and Zoho Notebook offer generous free tiers.
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I use SimpleNote, which is really close to the default MacOS note app (my goal was exactly to find something similar for Windows).
Note list on the left, note's content on the right, no bullshit, no clutter. You can pin notes, you can add tags, stuff is cloud-synced.
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