this post was submitted on 23 May 2025

-31 points (30.4% liked)

Selfhosted

46672 readers

340 users here now

A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.

Rules:

Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
No spam posting.
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
No trolling.

Resources:

selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
awesome-selfhosted software
awesome-sysadmin resources
Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting

Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.world

HybridSarcasm@lemmy.hybridsarcasm.xyz

-31

The last note taking app you'll ever need (amberwilliams.io)

submitted 2 weeks ago by jogai_san@lemmy.world to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Features for the note taking app detailed in this guide include:

Self-hosted
Private
Built to last
Low maintenance
Access in one place & from any device (Obsidian charges for this feature)
Versioning
Zero vendor lock-in
Extendable (eg. passing text-embedded notes to AI)

top 47 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Thaurin@lemmy.world 62 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Not saved as Markdown files, but in a database. I prefer editing my own files when I need to. I prefer Silverbullet.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 33 points 2 weeks ago

And they claim "zero vendor lock-in".

Exporting your content from whatever weird format they're using in the DB isn't exactly making the switch easy.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 15 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, especially for text files. Hard no.

Databases have their uses, but the trade off between obfuscating the data and making it harder for users to access has to be far more compelling. LogSeq is a really good example that you can do relatively complex note organization with cross references and tree structure without resorting to a database. Using a DB for something like this is user-hostile, smells of vendor lock-in, and seems lazy.

[–] spy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I already keep notes in markdown format but didn't know of Silverbullet.

I reject Obsidian and Joplin because they're based on electron but it looks like it's not the case for Silverbullet. Don't know if these even support markdown tbh.

I'll need to look into it further, looks really nice!

[–] JustEnoughDucks 30 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Obsidian ticks all of these boxes and syncthing to sync notes is a 5 minute setup.

Plus it stores things in plaintext instead of a database format that vendor locks you in (despite the claim of "no vendor lock in")

Ooooo yay another half-baked AI shoved into everything whatever possible.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Obsidian's only downside is that it's closed source, but this is a big downside for some people.

[–] archy@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yep and can be easily firewalled to mitigate trust

[+] irmadlad@lemmy.world -11 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Man, you guys REALLY do not like AI here. lol Yeah, it's a novelty for the average consumer. Sure, corporations try to wedge AI into everything, like an AI Rice Cooker. But we have to go there to figure out what it's core usefulness is. Think of when corps were hit by the trendy cloud thing. They pushed entire operations to the cloud. Then we figured out that what can be run in the cloud, might not ought be in the cloud. So, after a while, we regrouped, and no one even gives 'the cloud' much thought anymore...it's not special or trendy anymore.

It's like every trendy technological gizmo that supposed to make your life sooo much easier. These are selling points for people who really don't understand the real potential, and just want to make faceswaps, and bizarre pictures, or maybe music. I use AI when I'm mastering music tracks because I'm clinically deaf and some frequencies I just can't hear. Works very well.

[–] JustEnoughDucks 13 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Your cloud example is exactly right and exactly what we want to NOT HAPPEN.

They shoved the cloud so much down our throats so that they can force you into monthly income-sucking unneeded subscriptions. That is it. That is the single reason everyone did it.

The result is now the average user has a much worse experience overall. One literally has to fight with Microsoft products to save things on their own computer. IoT and smart products literally won't function without connections to their "cloud". Phones come without SD card compatibility and with low flash memory to force you into cloud subscriptions. Now every damn piece of software is a way overpriced subscription that almost all originally started as "switching to cloud infrastructure" (fucking adobe creative cloud).

The "cloud" has had so many data breaches and people data have been stolen, siphoned off, lost due to bugs, and sold to earn even more cash on the side.

A huge portion of the general corporatization and bad enshittification of digital services and software in general can be attributed to "the cloud shoving down our throats" that you describe.

AI is looking to do the same thing except castrate peoples' digital skills, critical thinking skills, transcription skills, and writing skills in order to siphon more and more of your income off in the form of AI subscriptions while they double dip and sell everything you ever say to it and triple dip in mining everything you say to it as R&D that you pay to do

Companies need to do the fucking R&D themselves with their revenue of a small country and stop forcing regular people to pay to be their alpha and beta testers and focus groups, and people gobble that boot up so hard because LLMs have a few small areas where they are slightly useful and can save 10 minutes per day and make them not have to critically think, so people will literally sell their data, their already small income, and their soul to save 10 minutes, and in 10 years the digital experience will be even more shitty and degraded than it got after "the cloud."

Your usecase is the exact definition as using LLMs as accessibility and to actually better the user experience for certain people which is not the goal of any AI company or 99% of LLM integrations

TD;DR

Non-consentual cloud shoving has caused newer generations to think that paying corporations every month to save files is normal and that your data is not yours and always corporate property ™®©, along with the decimation of understanding simple file structures. You can actually talk to teachers and professors and they unanimously say that tech literacy has nosedived.

Now with the LLM shoving, they are trying to force the new generation to have to pay subscriptions to think, write, compose, draw, and get information by stripping them of those skills.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world -1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We could say the very same things about all technology tho. I'm old enough to have lived a rather full life before the advent of the computer revolution. People in my age bracket lamented almost the same things you have pointed out in regards to computers, or really any new technology. Boomers, for some reason, seem to hate technology, even tho they use it on a minute by minute basis. Computers will rot your brain. Computers will do your thinking for you. Computers are going to take over the world. Yet, here we all sit in Lemmy Selfhosted, fully immersed in computer tech.

I hear what you are saying, and in some respects I can find commonality. However, I'm not on a mission from god, and have long since given up on trying to save the world from itself. I'm not saying it isn't a worthy cause, it's just that 8.2 billion people have 8.2 billion different ideas than I do.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There's a vast difference though. You're acting like we're Luddites or something, when there's already a concrete example of the problems you're promoting.

Yes, we have to tinker with AI to understand it. But your approach is to shove it into everything when we don't fucking want it in fucking everything.

Ffs can you be any more dismissive and denigrating by comparing us to luddites?

And, I'm probably mot much younger than you, and I can call bullshit on your claims. Nothing from 4+ decades ago compares to the Cloud and AI concerns, by orders of magnitude.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You’re acting like we’re Luddites or something

No, what I am saying tho is, give it a bit of time to sort itself out. If you don't want an AI Rice Cooker, don't get one. It's the knee jerk reaction to AI that I'm talking about. Do I like corporations mining and stealing my data. No, and I take proper precautions to circumvent that. Do I think that there are better options than people storing every last bit of their data on corporate cloud farms. Of course, but I don't hate on them. They do it because it's convenient and they don't understand that there are other options. A Dropbox or Gmail account takes about 5 minutes to spin up. Would I make recommendations if asked, as to what the better options are? Of course I would, I might even bring the topic up in certain situations, But again, I don't hate you because you use corporate clouds, or piss around with face swap AI, or hate on you because you bought an AI Rice Cooker, no matter what I think of them. For instance, the Cybertruck. I think that is about the most useless vehicle I've ever seen. It looks like some kid's welding shop project they did for a grade. But you do you.

Ffs can you be any more dismissive and denigrating by comparing us to Luddites?

Didn't compare you to a Luddite at all, and I apologize if it seemed that way. However I was making the comparison of AI hate to what I experienced when computers first became a public commodity and the hate people were spewing about them. Hell, I remember a lecture about the 'evils' of the calculator when they became available to the public. This knee jerk reaction proliferates through out all new technology. On the corporate side, of course they promote these things because, well, a business is usually in the business to maximize it's profit potential to it's investors. Even if you run a non-profit, you still gotta make some paper, but I'm not on a mission against corporate technologies. If you ask me if it's a good idea to have a Gmail account where Google reads your most private emails, I'd tell you no. I just don't hate on it. If you have a Gmail account. Good for you. Have fun with it.

And, I’m probably mot much younger than you, and I can call bullshit on your claims

Yes, you probably are as I am soon to be 71.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

I want to believe you have given this some thought, but for someone with as long a sea log as yours, you seem to have forgotten what happened when we "gave it time to sort itself out" for other services that are now completely entrenched in our lives and have made them worse for it.

apps for everything
not raising more complaint about the erosion of our privacy by private corporations
not defending open standards like PDF and now PDFs are a security and compatibility nightmare
"hey, maybe subscription models can be applied to printer ink"
etc, ad nauseum

AI itself is fine, and its been used for good (solving protein folding).

But AI in just about everything else is awful. It wastes energy and water. It is actively making people dumber. I'm fighting a losing battle at work with fools who wholesale believe AI answers on any question and others who literally vibe code.

If you truly believe ai is going to be better in the long run, you have not been paying attention to the last 30 years of technology becoming trash.

[–] truxnell@aussie.zone 20 points 2 weeks ago

Man there's a lot of the last note app you'll ever need!

[–] solrize@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Are there not already about a zillion of these?

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 weeks ago

Yes. Enjoy 30 minutes of unhinged (but logical and highly enjoyable) ranting about this, if you care to:

https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE

[–] Chee_Koala@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

I'll take Joplin instead! It's FOSS!

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

When i tried Joplin i was put off by a few issues:

pretty sluggish UI on all platforms
not plain markdown: all your files have .md extension but the content is definitely more JSON than MD :)
synch is cumbersome unless you use sychthing or similar.

It was over 1 year ago,so.

[–] Nibodhika@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Which is why I prefer Silberbullet

[–] GrosPapatouf@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I use Joplin with a self hosted WebDAV for syncing. Works like a charms on all my devices.

[–] stardustsystem@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I tried Joplin for a while but dropped it, too simple. Also tried Trilum, which I liked more but it's still a very young project.

Eventually, my Obsidian vault will go there, but not just yet.

[–] ReticulatedPasta@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Check out Trilium Next! It's under more active development after development on the original project stopped.

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yes, Joplin achieves everything this proposal does and more.

[–] trinsec@piefed.social 12 points 2 weeks ago

It took me far too long to figure out what note taking app this here is even talking about. Apparently it's a homemade app named Directus?

Obsidian charges for sync, but you can totally do your own syncing with other means.

[–] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 5 points 2 weeks ago

nano todo

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I don't really get all the hate on the comments. Yes there are tons of note taking alternatives, and yet usually none ever works just perfectly for anybody. More choice is a good thing.

Yes it saves to a database, but it doesnt seems to be encrypted nor "proprietary" or "vendor lock-in" as the notes are, afterall, plain text and can be extracted from a database easily. Is it the best storage for text notes? not in my opinion, but that is not vendor lock-in.

My choice is silverbullet on web and Markor on Android, with Synchting in the back (yes, Synchting still works pretty fine on android thanks to the forked app).

[–] JayleneSlide@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I don't really get all the hate on the comments.

Agreed. "Oh no! Not an ETL!" I wish more applications were backed by MySQL, MariaDB, Mongo, etc. Give me the option of encryption at rest, and when it's time to change apps, I have granular control over everything.

On the other hand, the advantage of all the hate is everyone presenting their faves and providing their reasons. So ...net win for the audience?

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think the mistake is they titled it "The last note taking app you'll ever need" instead of "The last note taking app I'lll ever need"

Yes, seriously. The article seems to talk mostly about their personal usecases, which is fine. This app is great and it works for them. But it won't work for everybody and the title should probably respect that instead of having a grating title that evokes a knee jerk reaction.

Databases are annoying it is legitimately more difficult to export data from a database to another, than it is to copy markdown notes from one folder to another. In addition to that, there are also tools that process markdown and do cool stuff with, like pandoc, beamer, revealjs, etc, which can't really be done with the more opaque database format.

Also this notetaking service only appears to work while online. Again, fine for them — but a dealbreaker for many people.

[–] non_burglar@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Really? You think it's the "last note taking app" comment in the description?

You don't think maybe it's the shoehorned AI into a project that has no real plan for how it is implemented?

Or maybe it's not the ai implementation, maybe it's the fact that "respects your privacy" is incompatible with openai's terms of use (openai can train on your notes if you supply them)?

[–] moonpiedumplings@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I'm not spotting it. "AI" is only mentioned once.

The key and secret in the docker compose don't seem to be API keys, but keys for directus itself (which upon a careful reread of the article, I realize is not FOSS, which might be anpther reason people don't like it").

Directus does seem to have some integration with openai, but it requires at least an api key and this blog post doesn't mention any of that.

The current setup they are using doesn't seem to actually connect to openai at all.

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works -2 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

What is this SyncThing fork? Is it on F-Droid or something? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because everyone praises SyncThing but it straight up does not work. I can get it to sync once, then the next day it will just not connect at all (Android 15 P9Pro/CachyOS)

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I started using syncthing after reading all that praise on lemmy. It deserves all the praise it can get, it's easy to setup and works perfectly.

what "crazy pills" are you taking?

syncthing-fork ☞ https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

what "crazy pills" are you taking?

Hear people praise SyncThing
Open the Play Store by depressing the tip of my finger on its icon
Search "SyncThing"
Click on first result
Press "Install"
It doesn't work

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yea, that's a lot of ambiguity.

"Doesn't work". Well, yea, if you only install it on your phone - it's a multi-device sync tool.

For Windows I recommend SyncTrayzor, for Linux and Mac it's Syncthing, for iOS it's Möbius.

I've installed it hundreds of times, the only time it hasn't worked was between 2 Android devices of a specific version, and this is a documented thing.

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

It's ok if you don't like my comment. But I specified in my original comment that I installed on Cachy as well. I value this convo because (hopefully) it will help future people. If you don't know what Linux is that's fine too

[–] Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

The original android app has been discontinued by the dev for reasons. Another dev picked it up and keep publishing SyncThing fork on FDROID, at least, i get it from fdroid...

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago

The Fork dev forked it years ago, well before the original dev stopped because of Play rules (which I really don't get).

Anyway, I've used Fork for years now, it "just works", plus moved all the config into each sync pair/folder.

[–] lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

Ok awesome, thank you. I'll try it out. I was not aware of the discrepancy with the Play Store version

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 week ago

An alternative to Syncthing is Resilio Sync. I use both, for different purposes.

Resilio is a battery eater on mobile, but it is a bit more consistent than Syncthing (though after 10+ years and probably terabytes of sync, it's not like ST is problematic).

RS offers Selective Sync, so I don't have to sync an entire folder, but can pick a file to sync "right now". This is really useful for my media folder (~2.5 TB), since I don't have that kind of free space on my phone. From anywhere I can fire up RS on my phone and grab whatever movie I want (or any file from my laptop, other phones etc, because all those files are synced to my server using Syncthing).

[–] SMillerNL@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

Looks like https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/home/ except that one is backed by two governments.

[–] Typewar@infosec.pub 3 points 2 weeks ago

I love new ideas and optimism, but only your last point is the uniqueness.. and it's in parentheses??

Gotta step up the marketing game here

[–] jia_tan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nextcloud notes

micdrop

[–] Father_Redbeard@lemmy.ml 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Awful app

[–] jia_tan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fair

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 weeks ago

I think you accidentally dropped your mic.

[–] Goingdown@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 weeks ago

Vim + vimwiki is what I use, with session saving plugin. That is all I need. For syncing, I use either git or syncthing.

[–] irmadlad@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for sharing OP. If I could find a selfhostable Notepad++ I'd be in high cotton. It ticks all the boxes I need.