this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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Hello everyone, I'd like your recommendations for a note taking app that:

  • Can be selfhosted
  • Stores the notes as plain text or *.md files, not some SQL database.
  • Can use Marddown format.
  • Have an android client or at least a mobile optimized web-interface.
  • Not a must but it would be nice to have a to-do list option.

I tried:

  • Trilium: use an encrypted litesql to store the notes.
  • Joplin: does not encrypt the notes, but store them in random named directories, making ot harder finding the notes.
  • Logseq: No firefox support, I did not check how it stores itsdatabase.
  • Standard note: Need subscriptions to selfhost or to use markdown format.
  • Memos: does not store plain files, instead uses a (sqlite probably) database even when setting local filesystem as current object storage.
  • CodiMD: use database to store its notes
  • Hedgedoc: the same as above

The closest I found so far is Obsidian, which:

  • Unfortunately, does not have any selfhosting option.
  • Have a client app on every platform and store.
  • Can use a custom directory to store it database as plain text files, whuch can be a network mounted directory (on my laptop/desktop) or a directory on my android phone that i will have to keep synchronized using a third party app.

Edit: March-2nd: added memos, codimd, hedgedoc

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[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Obsidian is my favorite thus far. It sucks at checklists/Todo though. So I use Quillpad as a shopping list keeper and Tasks.org as my task management/Todo, both syncing to my self hosted Nextcloud instance.

I'm still on Obsidian Sync because I couldn't get Syncthing to work reliably, but that was very early in my selfhosting journey, so I will try again.

[–] XenoWarden@midwest.social 3 points 11 months ago

I sync obsidian with my self hosted owncloud instance.

[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Self hosted obsidian live sync eorks very well. I use it on 3 devices each with a different OS. Super fast and responsive. I can see text appear almost as fast as Google docs when types on one device and watched from another.

I know obsidian itself is not FOSD but the files are markdown and you can easily back them up with your existing backup setup (seafile for me) and then open up the plain md files if needed for some reason

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 months ago

I'll give it a go. The plain md files is exactly why I went with Obsidian in the first place. I just haven't found a FOSS alternative that I like as much. Closest is Acreom but it's not yet open source, on the roadmap though.

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Coming back to this, I just realized I have Seafile syncing my Obsidian vault already. I know you said you're using it for Backup, but have you tried to use it as the only sync solution for Obsidian? I like it so much because of how fast it is, so if it works well, I may just do that once my membership expires.

[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Seafile doesn't have 2 way sync on android. Would probably work well enough for sync between two computers

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

How incredibly timely!

I'll have to give it a go with a copy of my vault.

[–] Lem453@lemmy.ca 2 points 11 months ago

Oh wow, direct obsidian seafile sync sounds amazing.

It bypasses the android sync app and just syncs to the server directly! This is brilliant!

Main issue with live sync is if you have multiple users you need multiple sync servers. This will allow all your seafile users to sync right away which us amazing!