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…
I’ve used Joplin before which was okay-ish (but borked the e2e encryption during an update).
Now I would recommend Silverbullet if you are really keen on self hosting a notes app.
But the notes that work best for me is simply Obsidian + Syncthing-Fork (you could self host a syncthing server), thanks to its sheer ability to adapt to nearly any use case thanks to its plugin.
If you go this route, OP, and have an Android phone, then you should know the (very sad and disappointing) news that SyncThing for Android is about to be shut down.
But Syncthing Fork is not shut down and is still maintained (never used the main version tbh).
https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android-fdroid
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid/
Oooohh. TIL. Thanks!
What was wrong with Joplin? I was thinking about giving it a try.
After trying a bunch, I’m using Obsidian + <your choice of sync plugin> now. Good thing with Obsidian is your notes are ultimately a bunch of plaintext files, so you can do whatever you want with them, and it comes with clients for most platforms.
Another option is Trilium, it is pretty powerful, and has a webapp so as long as you can access a browser, you’ll be able to access your notes. https://github.com/zadam/trilium
Been using Logseq since February and it’s been a game changer. My only gripes are a) inability to access via browsers, and b) lack of a quick note function. Sometimes I still use Keep to jot something down and transfer later. Logseq spends a solid 5+ seconds syncing upon opening, which can feel like an eternity when trying to quickly log something.
+1 for the open source option: Trilium The project is being maintained here: https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes
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.
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
Trilium. You’ll be glass you tried it.
Are you threatening to nuke my home if I don’t!?
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
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.
I setup nextcloud and just use that to backup my Obsidian notes. But I also use next cloud deck depending on the type of notes or list I’m making
Obsidian but with syncthing here, just syncs the files across my devices.
Nextcloud has a Notes app too
You should take a look at the selfhosted live sync plugin for obsidian. It’s been working flawlessly for me for the past year.
Doesn’t it actually require you to sign up to an account on some app hosting platform, rather than self host it?
It’s still in alpha but hoarder is promising
It’s designed to organize bookmarks, but can also support markdown notes with picture (a single picture, not multiple pictures)
Unfortunately at the moment the mobile app is so alpha that doesn’t support creation or editing such notes, only new bookmarks or new photos.
It uses a headless chromium to make screenshots for URLs.
Optionally, can use a bullshit generator like ollama or openai api keys to automatically create a lot of useless tags to each note
Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.
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
