I’m completely new to selfhosting but see a lot of potential. I wonder if anyone knows a good way to self host a notetaking app? The point is that I need to access my notes on multiple devices so self hosting them could be a nice idea. I currently use google keep and goodnotes but would like to leave those behind…
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I use Joplin on top of Nextcloud.
Nextcloud is a really good all-in-one solution for self hosting data
Welcome to the rabbit hole of selfhosted note-taking apps. https://selfh.st/apps/?tag=Note-Taking
Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a journey. You’ll probably end up going through a few of these options until you find one that works for you and fits your workflow.
I use nextcloud notes because I already have nextcloud and my needs are not that sophisticated
I’m going to try this out. I hesitated because I was considering switching to Owncloud Infinite Scale, but I’m not going to bother because I decided the file structure OCIS uses is a deal-breaker (way too complex to recover in a disaster).
I’ve been getting on well with notesnook, the self hosting is in beta right now but its just a docker container. Docs are coming for self hosting in the near future.
The criteria for me when I was looking for a notes app were:
- self hosted
- e2e encrypted
- supports images and other rich media as well as text
- can use markdown for text formatting
- supports mobile as well as some desktop interface
- can make lists with checkable boxes
- background sync
Notesnook hits all of these. I wish it had a dedicated desktop app but that’s something I can just use a browser window for.
Notesnook has a desktop app. Does it not work with self hosted implementation?
You’re right! I missed it somehow
Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.
What’s this about Syncthing now?
Dev discontinued the app due to google being difficult to maintain.
Ah damn. Thanks for the info
See my comment about Resilio sync above
I migrated to the Syncthing android fork, and it’s even better than the original.
Resilio sync works great for that since syncthing is on the out. I actually prefer Resilio anyways
Obsidian is not open source but i also think it’s pretty neat.
Quillpad is the closest I’ve found. It’s simple markdown files. It can sync with Nextcloud as well. I use it for any short note or lists. Long form stuff including journal, I use Obsidian (not open source)
It really does have that same look that Google Keep has! Thanks for recommending, I will try this! Do you have experience with syncing Quillpad with Nextcloud?
Yes. I have a Pi4 running NextcloudPi image on it. I sync docs, pics, even backup my Obsidian vault. It’s worked really well for Quillpad in my experience. On desktop I use Iotas (Linux) if I need to update from that instead of my phone.
I use Joplin, no complaints.
Results from me asking this 1Y ago: https://lemm.ee/post/4593760
Went with Joplin and using it since.
I use Memos and love it.
I connect to it from my desktop at home and from my phone via a WireGuard VPN and it’s everything I need. Worth a look, I think.
Memos fits a wide variety of uses and is the first note system that has clicked for me. I use it for quick notes so I don’t forget things, journal-like entries, save for later (like Pocket), shopping lists and other todos.
Looks great! Does it have handwriting support?
I don’t see anything about that on their site.
Yeah Memos is great. I use it as a personal journal. It supports great features like Postgres database, tags, filters, S3 for assets, SSO with OIDC. Dev works on more features like referencing notes if I read correctly
Only downside for me is, pictures are always at the end of a note, not inline like in wikis
I use radicals for CalDAV and save notes there together with my calendars. On Android there is jtx Board which let’s you work with them. Sadly on Linux I couldn’t find anything so I started writing something myself but don’t have much time to work on it https://github.com/jeena/JNotes
Trilium. You’ll be
glassglad you tried it.Trilium is an excellent option, however, the original project is no longer maintained. There is a new community fork that is active here: https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes
Good point.
Are you threatening to nuke my home if I don’t!?
Ooh, typo. I’ll edit it so that those who fulfill these kinds of things know not to glass your home.
Eh, if you want. It’s a rental…
I’d vote for anytype or obsidian
Anytype has a learning curve, But it has built-in encryption and IPFS syncing provided by the company. The templating system is really slick and the relational aspect is pretty solid.
Obsidian + syncthing fork is a really solid contender. It’s much easier to work with out of the box but the features are a little more generic.
Neither of these are really self-hosted, so much as they are contained in their own ecosystem. You get some measure of higher availability that you have to really work for if you’re really self-hosting a product.
Hm at some point Anytype apps will be configurable for custom servers tho (i assumed they were already but i might have been wrong).
Obsidian also has some interesting sync plugins that dont require syncthing
The crypto is decent, it’s electron so it’s source available. If you want to ignore their hosting solution, you can disable the syncing and just take the vault from its config directory and sync it yourself
The real downsides are that it’s not actual open source, so if they decided to screw around with the security or turn the crypto off somebody can’t just fork it.
I’m just using a self hosted git repo with markdown files. I was having trouble finding something open source that I could edit with vim that also had a good mobile solution. I also didn’t want to get locked into a file format that was specific to an app.
Markdown is ubiquitous and I use git all the time as a developer so it was easier to tack something onto an existing workflow. It’s a little janky but at least I won’t be screwed by devs abandoning whatever app I was using.
Appflowy if Notion appels you. It is not 1.0 yet so some features you need might not be there.
Man we need a giant comparison table. I looked into these but have been trying out SiYuan.
Yea… I may put one together because I’ve tried so many just trying to find the right fit and that includes handwriting support. I wish Obsidian had better handwriting support because it’s my favorite notes app.
Siyuan wants an account even if I want to sync in WebDAV or S3, sorry but no.
Never heard of them. Will check them out sometime. Thx.
Affine is a newer project and has interesting features. Outline is more mature. I prefer outline a little bit more 😌
