Why don’t just use something like Joplin? Or you could try NovelWriter. Both are open source and easy to use.

Text files used to be a thing.

Try looking into these (not yet cited here):

• Siyuan
• AppFlowey
• Affine Pro

Notesnook.

It’s FOSS, it’s loaded with features, it’s cross-platform, and offers a self-hostable FOSS sync server, too.

It sounds like you might like Logsec. I use it for general note-keeping, but I think it would work really well as a journal because it defaults to a new time-stamped entry when you open it. These entries are presented chronology like a journal, and you can create links to other pages if you want to dive further into a specific topic.

Also, all entries are saved as standard markdown files, so they would be easy to adapt to another software later if needed. This also makes it really easy to sync data between devices with something like Syncthing.

What about https://storypad.me/

CherryTree LibreOffice You know, it's all about taste, and the system you set up. What is "modern" to you? Share a picture? What do you mean by "cool"? Safe, is that encryption, or the ability to not lose your entries, like backup and such?

AnyType is an interesting option.

I discovered Trilium a couple days before discovering the project was dead. But here is TriliumNext now so it's not that much of a problem (yay opensource!)

Works great on a computer, not as much on a phone. There are android apps to send directly something to it, but reading its content involves the webapp directly... which isn't that bad but overall that's not ideal. Still, after years of trying floss journaling apps one after another, it's the only one I kept more than a couple weeks.

Jrnl on pc and sync the folder to my android and use markor there.

if you don't mind a lil scripting, I use silverbullet quite a bit for journaling as well as note taking.

Was going to say Obsidian, but upon verifying, realized that it's not actually open source. Interesting.

For android I tend to like Safe Notes. It's relatively simple, encrypted with either passphrase or biometrics, and stored locally, with a way to back up to a file. Just make sure you memorize/save the passphrase so you don't lose your entries. It's android only though, if that matters. I only use it for shorter stuff, so I'm not sure how well it works for longer entries.

Joplin synced to a self-hosted sync server with E2EE on, that's my setup. Works great.

LunaTask

Notesnook might work for you.

Check out simplenote

After reading all the comments I think that what you need is a voice recorder, make entries Star Trek style and run the audio files through a transcription tool in bulk once a month or so. Or just keep them in audio format.

I do pen and paper.

I also write cursive as an obfuscation tactic. Makes it harder for the younger generations to figure out what my thoughts were.

Standard Notes. You can even self host.

I have tried all the biggest name tools, but have concluded that analog pen and paper work best
Especially if you care about security much

@Sauron Joplin (mentioned earlier) is fantastic. I use Standard Notes. Big fan.

What about just a simple paper notebook?

(I'm not trying to be a jerk)

TrilliumNext Notes is a great one.

I'm not one for journalling but I was looking for notes and I didn't like Logseq since it was to journally for me. https://logseq.com/