this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Hi.

I'm curently using Nextcloud notes for its convenience. I use the app on my phone, and the webui on my pc.

I'm willing to ditch Nextcloud as a whole, so I want to replace my note taking habits.

I've tried Trilium, which lacks an Android app, and I feel the WPA makes the UI unpractical and hard to read.

I've tried Joplin, but it lacks a webui.

Are there other alternatives I've missed out ?

Solution: I ended up finding Flatnotes. It's dead simple to run and to use, has markdown and WYSIWYG, and the WPA is flawless.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Logseq can be launched as a desktop app and in a web browser and has both iOS and Android apps. Official sync is a paid feature but there are other options (e.g. Syncthing).

[–] exception4289 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That's what I use.
Logseq with Syncthing for interoperability between my PC & smartphone.

[–] muntedcrocodile 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

How does syncthing compair to git. Im using git currently but sycing to mobile has a tendancy to break

[–] exception4289 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No problems at all.
I setup a 3-way folder sync between 3 nodes:

  1. Desktop (Linux)
  2. Android
  3. VPS

VPS is always on, so even if my smartphone is not connected to the internet when I log off of my desktop, the smartphone automatically fetches the updated folder from the VPS .

I haven't used git for this purpose but I'd think the process would be tedious. Manual commit, push, fetch ...

Also, I tried to set it up with Nextcloud but I couldn't get Android Logseq to use the Nextcloud folder for some reason. I don't remember the exact issue.

[–] muntedcrocodile 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I might have to try syncthing then im sure i can use git for versioning my notes from just one node and retain that feature. I use logseq so on desktop git syncing is automatic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Second (or third?) Logseq. Bit of a learning curve, at least for me and overall it suits me much better than Standard Notes, which I was using previously. Standard Notes is now way overpriced compared to what it initially was, so great timing as well. One gripe I have with Logseq is you are unable to export queries as a page or text doc. It definitely has its quirks, though overall it's great. And if anyone wants to share how they organise pages, tags, etc. feel free!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I want to avoid syncthing for my notes as I've read some people experience issues with duplicates and conflicts between versions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Since it just uses markdown files in a directory, You could use anything to synchronise the state. E.g. nextcloud desktop or git

[–] fart_pickle 14 points 8 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

I quite like Obsidian too. Markdown note app that has desktop & mobile versions. You can create templates and have it so that a new note using a template is opened automatically when you open the app (e.g. for daily notes). It also supports a lot of different community created plugins.

I sync across android & linux via google drive for free, otherwise Obsidian also has a paid sync feature.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

While there seems to be a selhosted version, I can't log to it with the proprietary android app.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think you can just sync the Obsidian Directory with any cloud service or syncthing and it should work fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

yup, this is what I do and it works great. just be careful if you add plugins that store a ton of metadata that changes a lot (or logs) because that can lead to some sync conflicts and you might wanna exclude them. I've just been ignoring the sync conflicts tho and haven't had issues yet so maybe you could do the same

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

I asked this a couple of weeks ago, there were many solid suggestions: https://lemm.ee/post/4593760

I ended up with Joplin and am very happy with it.

[–] fireshell 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Anytype - An open-source Notion alternative.

org-mode/org-roam in Emacs, on Orgzly mobile, synchronization via git.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

If you’ve used Anytype, can you share your experience? I have an account and I’d like to move over some of my Notion content, but haven’t had time to try it yet.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Just a note taking app with support for different types of notes, templates, fields on notes for metadata etc.

I mostly use it to write down my ideas down and log tasks.

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[–] thirdBreakfast 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I started on a similar journey (escaping from Evernote rather than Nextcloud), and ended up on Silverbullet run at home and accessed over Tailscale. It is a bit of a different approach and has a small upfront learning time. I love having all my notes as reasonably plain markdown, so if I ever want to change my solution, my data's in an easily movable format - for example changing to Obsidian would not involve any import/export.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

That looks really interesting, I'm fairly happy with Joplin but SB looks like how I’d do things if I wrote something like this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

+1 for silver bullet. Love it. PWA works great. And it works offline I believe.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

org-mode :P

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Org-mode, with Orgzly on Android, sync via a WebDav server, which you can also mount on you PC and literally use any editor to edit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Filestash also has a Orgmode web-ui and works on top of WebDAV.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Notesnook is not ready for self-hosting yet, but it’s up next on their roadmap. I’ve been trying it out in advance and it seems to work ok. The only issue I have with it is that it logs you out of the apps way too often.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Looks promising. I'll be following. Thanks

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'm willing to ditch Nextcloud as a whole

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Didn't understand that by willing you meant wanting.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Sorry if it wasn't the right term, not a native English speaker ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Are there certain features you've grown to rely on?

I use plaintext documents with markdown. There's a markdown editor for the web. Markor is an excellent Android app. Take your pick of a number of text editors with markdown.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

Just need a nice webui and a nice android app. But I need both.

[–] thirdBreakfast 3 points 8 months ago

Thanks for going back and updating with your solution - I'm gonna check that out.

[–] Guajojo 3 points 8 months ago

The WebApp for trillium works great compared to the desktop app. You won't tell a difference

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There are other note apps that can sync with Nextcloud. I settled on Quillpad because of its checklist functionality, though admittedly it's not perfect.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (8 children)

I've been using the most recent fork and it was good, but as I said, I want to ditch Nextcloud as a whole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do you not plan to have any kind of cloud storage?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I do, but I'll be running FileRun or something alike

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[–] techgearwhips 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Joplin via Dropbox (free account) is effortless and painless. I used to sync it via nextcloud and it always gave me issues. It has an iOS, Android, and Desktop app so why do you need Web Ui?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A webui can be extremely useful on, say, a work computer with strict install policies, or if you're borrowing someone else's machine and need to look something up (maybe you're fixing or installing something on someone else's computer and want your notes easily accessible).

[–] techgearwhips 1 points 8 months ago

Makes sense

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Memos might do the trick for you. There is a 3rd party android native app, but I found the PWA to be quite good. Markdown is stored in a single sqlite db file though, if that bugs you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I use memos already, but for another purpose. This app is great :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

See https://lemm.ee/post/4593760 for a related post and more discussions about pros and cons of each.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

It is odd that there’s no web app for Joplin given that it’s written in TypeScript. It’s such a commonly requested feature, I wonder what the problem is.

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