I am trying to slowly de-Google-ify myself by moving to open source apps, I wanna ditch google notes and evernote. I tried obsidian, standard notes, and joplin, I liked using obsidian on PC and standard notes looks nice on android but obsidian you need to pay to have sync and standard notes doesn’t do markdown unless you pay (are plugins only on PC???). Joplin has most features I need but I don’t like how it looks/feels on android (haven’t tried in PC yet)
Basically what I want the most in a notes app is offline with sync capability for phone and PC, would be nice to make folders for notes like notepads on evernote, and md is a big plus but I can live without it. I would love if I could use something like proton drive for cloud sync and wouldn’t mind paying for obsidian if it was cheaper cuz $8 per month is too much for my minimum pay and I didnt see any cheaper plans.
EDIT: If no one has any better suggestions, I am thinking of trying to setup obsidian with syncthing.
I love how 90% of replies are recommending software that isn’t open-source.
At the very least most of the recommendations are not run my multi billion/million companies like Google keep, notion, and evernote who are always suspicious in what they do on the side.
I actually use Obsidian on my Linux desktop, synced with Syncthing to my Android phone, iPad, home server, etc (have version control also active to keep older copies of notes). Mainly because the volume of notes I do is on the desktop, and I need them for reference everywhere. But I’m not sure Obsidian is best as a phone app (bit busy), but you could test it with a simple UI.
You could try Notesnoot, it’s very good and open-source.
Logseq could be another option although I’m unsure about syncing, syncing might be possible via NextCloud/syncthing
I sync all my notes on Logseq using syncthing between 2 PCs and a phone. Working reliable for 7 months now
Sync Obsidian with Syncthing.
I am using Joplin with syncthing. I don’t need online services for syncthing. My smartphone is the center of this synchronization of notes with three different pc in three different places (I do it with keepssxc database too). I just have to be a bit careful and so I check that the synchronization has been done before writing notes an another device. It’s a nice solution for me. The devices are an android smartphone, two linux laptops and a Windows pc. It works.
I highly recommend:
- Web: Nextcloud + Nextcloud Notes App + Qownnotes Sync App
- Desktop: Qownnotes and/or vim (or any texteditor of choice)
- Mobile: Nextcloud Notes
Main advantage of this software stack over other solutions like joplin is the handling of the notes. Everthing is stored in a simple folder structure in plain markdown text files (*.md). This means if anything breaks, you are always able to read and edit with any text editor on any system! I switched away from joplin because it stores the notes in a database and notes file names are a cryptic string, so if you are not able to load joplin it’s very hard to find anything.
