A bit of a self promo (I’m the main author), but you may also want to look at SilverBullet as alternative: https://silverbullet.md/
Bit more technical than EverNote. More like Obsidian, but 100% open source and self hosted.
this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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That landing page is pretty clever BTW.
What would you say are the best reasons to prefer your app over obsidian?
It’s an offline capable PWA. So it works on any device that has a modern web browser with having to install anything (on the client). It’s open source software. It’s just different.
Do you support MathJax/LaTeX, toggles, and embedding images? If so, I might just switch off of Obsidian.
Latex yes: https://github.com/silverbulletmd/silverbullet-katex
Not sure what you mean with toggles.
And embedded images: yes. Just drag and drop or copy and paste them.
I really, really like Joplin.
I had not heard of Joplin, thank you for mentioning it. Just installed to Android and OSX, syncs with Syncthing beautifully! I think I found my new note taking system.
I’m glad you like it! I had never heard of it either, until i went looking for free notes apps. Easily my favorite one I’ve used
There are several that I've been using / trying out:
- Notion
- used to be good, but it's becoming more and more bloated, and nowadays those AI command options seem to be cluttering the quick commands.
- It is freemium, and syncs with their servers.
- It has a really good table creation system, and the keyboard navigation flows really well.
- I stopped using it since it's becoming slower and bloated, and migrated my language notes to Obsidian.
- Obsidian
- is very capable (except that it doesn't a good WYSIWYG table creation / adjustment system),
- it has tons of community plugins, very fast, lightweight, and customizable.
- Completely free, but it does take some tinkering, and some parts do look kinda awful.
- If you've been taking long notes with markdown, then Obsidian will probably suit you.
- I have all my language notes written in Obsidian and synced to Github with a plugin.
- Anytype
- is the latest one I'm trying out. Still in alpha, version 0.32
- It is clunky at times, because the keyboard navigation is not well implemented, you still need to rely on mouse to select some sections.
- But it has a really interesting type / relation definition system, where you define an object type, e.g. Movie, and you can define templates, relation to other objects (e.g. relation to Directors, etc).
- I'm currently using it to plan my games / streaming backlog, it has a good table and data view system.
I believe all 3 of them have android apps.
First off, Notion is vastly superior to Evernote in every way (IMO). They have super streamlined apps for both Android and iOS, and the learning curve is negligible. Fully accessible in any browser, too. Once mastered, Notion is ridiculously powerful, and their free account ridiculously generous.
That being said, I recently discovered Obsidian, and although I have big love for Notion, I don't think I'll be using it anymore.
Obsidian also has apps, both for mobile and (native) desktop (Mac, Win, Linux), ~~is open source~~ (edit: my bad, not open source), and has a thriving plugin community on GitHub.
The learning curve is steeper, and Obsidian is one of those things that's so flexible that it's borderline overwhelming, but if you can wrap your head around how you want to use it, make it suit your needs, it's the absolute bee's knees.
Personally, I use Obsidian on my Mac desktop, and sync my Vaults (basically just a specific folder on your HDD containing your notes (individual markdown.md files) and folders) with Google Drive. I then sync the changes to my Android phone using Autosync for Google Drive, where I use the native Obsidian app, and Google Drive syncs to my Chromebook where I run the Obsidian Linux client.
I can't stress enough how much I love Obsidian, it's truly been one of my top 3 new software revelations in the last 5 years (Raycast and Midjourney being the other two). Highly recommended ❤️
Edit: Sorry, just now noticed this was posted in FOSS, so my suggestions might not be valid. Just thought since you're coming from Evernote, and there are fantastic, free alternatives, you might want to look into those 🙂 Both my recommendations have paid options (Obsidian offers paid sync, but is completely compatible with free alternatives), but both work amazingly without ever opening your wallet.
I use obsidian too! while it's not open source, there's so many community plugins and all your notes are stored on your computer in markdown, so you have complete control over your notes (you aren't locked in to using obsidian). I sync my notes with OneDrive, then I use the OneSync mobile app to get my notes synced onto my phone.
something similar to obsidian is logseq, it's open source but it's more geared towards bullet point notes. I used it a bit and it didn't make sense for me (I was mostly journaling, but it looks very promising if you take notes in a bullet point format!)
Now that I've migrated away from Reddit, I will miss /r/Obsidian. I wonder if there's a Lemmy channel somewhere 🤔
I tried Obsidian, but I'm building a meal planner and a workout planner in Notion and I just can't imagine getting anywhere near this juice for my squeeze from Obsidian. I also live for the consistency between Windows and Android and the simple and clear notifications from my projects, tasks, and calendar on BOTH reliably.
Do I need to give Obsidian a 2nd look? Any resource you recommend for plug-ins or specific plug-ins? Thanks!
Honestly, that sounds like something you're going to have a much better time doing in Notion 😅
Your use case is outside the type of thing I use Obsidian for (notes, brainstorms, longform/fiction writing, project development), so there might be plugins I don't know about that will help you do what you're describing, but then I'm not the right person to ask 😕
I'm not sure what type of functionality it is you want to end up with, but if Notion doesn't get you there, my first thoughts would be to try Google Sheets (can do almost anything, but steep learning curve for advanced stuff), or maybe even Airtable (which I haven't looked at since I found Notion, at least 5 years ago, so unsure how they've been developing).
Good luck with the project! 😃🤘
I use the Notes app of Nextcloud. It syncs flawlessly between Linux and Android. Of course with your own instance of Nextcloud, hosted or self-hosted, you get sooo much more.
I used to use evernote mainly to store OCRed pdfs with some metadata. Moved my workflow over to a self hosted paperless-ngx instance. I'll never go back.
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After Evernote announced the price hike a month or so ago I started researching alternatives. I looked into a bunch of different apps/services but decided I did not want to get locked into another proprietary system subject to enshittification. So my main criteria were:
- Cross platform with support for Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS
- Fully Open Source
- Portable/open format files (e.g. Markdown)
- Self-hosted option so files are always on devices I own
Both Joplin and Logseq fit the criteria and were good in my testing when combined with Syncthing to copy files around securely. There are a ton of other options out there but they didn't fit one or more of my wants.
Joplin is a VERY easy transition from Evernote. It can import notes exported from Evernote, has a similar interface, and doesn't take much getting used to.
Logseq is interesting but it's going to take time to get used to its workflow since it's so different. I watched a couple hours worth of videos on its use and it that style may just not be for me.
I went with Syncthing because that means the notes never leave my devices, so there is no need to depend on a server or worry about the security/integrity of the note content. The downside is that syncing outside the house isn't so simple, though it can be nudged to work over a VPN. Not for everyone.
After spending a week or so being happy with Joplin+Syncthing I canceled my Evernote subscription and went back to the free tier, but honestly I haven't even opened it since doing that. I haven't needed anything in it that I couldn't do in Joplin.
Your experience is what i am looking to accomplish. I'd like to transfer everything Evernote to a self-hosted FOSS application I can serve on my Synology NAS. I would access my notes primarily on my phone (Android) and sometimes Windows. AFIAK, Joplin would sync to my Synology NAS where it's hosted... so I'm a little perturbed by the additional used of Syncthing.
Would someone explain the need/desire for Joplin+Syncthing?
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I use syncthing + zettlr.
Basically, just sync a folder rather than trying to find the perfect notebook app.
zettlr looks interesting, pity there isn't an Android app at least.
I may give zettlr a spin for some other Markdown uses, though. It might be handy for use with Jekyll
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I have used Joplin for a good while. I self hosted a little docker server for sync and off I went. There are paid sync plans available though. Nowadays I'm lazy and use the notes of my Nextcloud instance most of the time.
Thanks! Nextcloud could be a good solution, given that we already have that server running – do they have an app inside or just a text file? I'm not the admin of that cloud, so can't check any extra options personally
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Just adding: you can also sync Joplin through your Nextcloud instance, works well for me
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I'm also looking for an alternative to Evernote since they jacked up their prices. My primary use is as a document store for OCR and indexing of scanned paperwork.
For general note taking I'm starting to use Logseq, but I don't think that's the right solution for long term storage, I have over 10 years of scanned documents I want to port across
Paperless-NGX seems to be the best option I found so far, but not installed it yet
Since you mentioned ssh and vi(m), I'll throw out vimwiki. No Android app, unless you count termux, and there's a bit of a learning curve, but idk, it really clicks with me.
Joplin or Zim.
I used Zim in the past, it’s a very polished app with a lot of features.
I would say wonderful in terms of capabilities and concept, just OK in terms of UI but highly effective. I guess more then OK in the sense pretty much everything is there and just works. Wish they had an android app. The things I like about it are:
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You can have pretty large notes collections and still use and navigate. At least for me though it seems to be limited to 3000 or so notes in a single notebook for speed reasons. That is way higher than I think I could sanely navigate in a normal app like Joplin though because it is a wiki and can be hierarchical too.
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I like that it stores as simple files in the file system. Nice format for fairly large notes too. So I can just manipulate stuff there if needed and process stuff with standard Linux commands or with Python. Really helpful when importing stuff for example, or reformatting something.
This is not at all what it’s meant for but I use Element messenger for this purpose. It’s on all my devices, it’s e2ee, it’s shareable if needs be. It’s also a damn fine messenger in its own right.
I personally love Logseq. I use syncthing to sync the files but they're implementing their own syncing feature. Works really fantastic and is cross platform.
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I use emacs with org mode, and the orgzly android app, for my note taking. It fits my needs well enough, though the android app cant do all the fancy latex insertion emacs can.
Steep learning curve but fun to use once you got how it works.
Seems you started looking for an alternative just in time 😳👍
Great that I didn't consider subscription for a second.
So many great alternatives, luckily! 😊
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