this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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Any recommendations for a self hosted note taking app that runs on everything with a screen and is designed for multi device usage?

Also a modern, powerful and puristic UI would be a must have to compete with Keep.

I am looking for this app every now and then but am always disappointed by the choices.

I recently tried Joplin on Android, but was very dissatisfied with the usabilty.

The FOSS self hosted alternatives for smart home and porn are better than the commercial ones, can't be that hard for notes, can it?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Obsidian! Getting it to use cloud synced folders is a little tricky but it is a fabulous little program.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Available but not FOSS. Gotta watch the license if you use it for any work.

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

I'm curious what licensing issues you would run into with obsidian?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a huge one, but it is only free for personal and non-profit use. “If your notes contain content directly related to work projects or processes for a greater-than-one-person company, then you require a commercial license.”

Since it is on flathub and they don’t really nag you, I am sure there are people who aren’t really aware.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Good to know thanks for the info. I'll have to have a bit of a dig myself.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Obsidian is so so good.

I don't even mind to pay for their sync service to support them. You can even encrypt your vault (notebook) with your own key.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seconding Obsidian - it's not FOSS, but the files are just markdown, nothing special, so you're not locked in. Self hosting is real easy, you just have to Sync the files, and everything follows. I use syncthing between my laptop and phone and am having a good time with it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Whoops, should have noticed your endorsement of syncthing before posting a comment mentioning this.

While Obsidian does save to individual files, the Markdown they use seems to be a superset of everyday Markdown. Eg, being able to use callouts (eg, Note, Warning, Info, etc) and embedded linking of notes.

The automatic backlinks are fantastic. And I've discovered that if I rename a note, all links to that note get updated as well. So no need to worry about orphaning pages.

I've added a handful of plugins as well. Off the top of my head, one is a dynamic table of contents (for that page), another helps to compose/edit Markdown tables.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Also a big fan of Obsidian!

For syncing, one option is to use syncthing.

I know someone (whose geek creds are admittedly well beyond mine) who is also a fan. He uses GitHub to sync his notes.