Notes app

freebooter

freebooter

freebooter

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I am looking for recommendations for notes apps. I have two use cases and they could use different apps or the same one.

The first use would be linux only and I would want it to save files locally.

The second would need to be cross platform, at least windows and linux. Hence, it would need to save files to a cloud service.

For the first usage in the past I have used Cherrytree notes and recently tried Zim but they both had a problem that the side bar was fixed width so page titles didn't fully display. The first use case would be quite simple and could be purely text but maybe being able to do simple embeds of pictures would be useful but probably not essential. I would prefer to have more features and formatting for the second usage.

There seem to be a lot of similar apps about, ie Joplin, Obsidian etc. Many look to be commercial with a fee for some features. A lot use electron which for some reason I usually try to avoid. Not sure why tbh :D

Any suggestions/recommendations?
 
freebooter said:
I am looking for recommendations for notes apps. I have two use cases and they could use different apps or the same one.

The first use would be linux only and I would want it to save files locally.

The second would need to be cross platform, at least windows and linux. Hence, it would need to save files to a cloud service.

For the first usage in the past I have used Cherrytree notes and recently tried Zim but they both had a problem that the side bar was fixed width so page titles didn't fully display. The first use case would be quite simple and could be purely text but maybe being able to do simple embeds of pictures would be useful but probably not essential. I would prefer to have more features and formatting for the second usage.

There seem to be a lot of similar apps about, ie Joplin, Obsidian etc. Many look to be commercial with a fee for some features. A lot use electron which for some reason I usually try to avoid. Not sure why tbh :D

Any suggestions/recommendations?
Click to expand...
I've been playing around with Emacs and Org mode.

orgmode.org

Org Mode

Org-mode. Complex so you don't have to be. A versatile organisational system with immense capabilities.
orgmode.org orgmode.org

You can save it to a cloud drive (I'm using Google Drive) and it works on Windows, Linux, and macOS (as well as others). The advantage of going with Emacs is that it is free and open source plus it is incredibly powerful with what you can do with it.
 
Thanks for for the suggestions but I think they both look a bit too complex for what I am looking for tbh.
 
I have used Obsidian with the exact mechanism above for sync, aka version control - and even something like iCloud/Onedrive across platform, I had them sync to my iPad via iCloud for a long time. But it's Electron based, in fairness felt like as decent as any electron based app can be, similar to VS Code. I'm with you on the anti-electron app though.
 
I have been using Obsidian for a few years now, when I migrated away from OneNote & Evernote. I needed something that was cross-platform, uses mark-down, great editor and would sync easily with mobile. Obsidian can do all of those things and is best in class in my view, particularly when you add in the community and plug-ins/extensions. That said it has it's downfalls; it's not open-source and sync really improves dramatically when paying for their cloud sync. You can use it without their paid sync and use free options but these rely on software solutions on Android/iOS (i.e. Syncthing) . It also doesn't have a web-based client either.

Others that I've checked out:
  • Doom Emacs/NeoVIM - Very powerful and so customisable. But also if you've don't have previous experience, or live in the editors then you need to learn. I did try both and played around with an add-on called neorg for VIM, but this doesn't use markdown unfortunately. As an aside found this fantastically entertaining video on someone's personal journey through various open source notes that made me consider these; Youtube Video
  • Logseq - uses a different workflow than Obsidian and the community isn't as big, but is open-source and will overlap with Obsidian (one I keep an eye on). I just didn't like it as much as Obsidian, sync is in beta, but I think the main app isn't electron based (according to Wikipedia).
  • Zettler - uses markdown, but I didn't like the editor.
  • Zim - very basic and easy to use oldschool editor, but use plain text files. I can see you've tried this one, but I quite liked it. Very basic though.
Then there are all the cloud options (Joplin, Notion, StandardNotes etc.) although I know you can deploy some of those on your own server.

The conclusion I came to, is that if you don't need mobile it does make the requirement much easier and more options become viable.
 
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