this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
146 points (98.7% liked)

Selfhosted

40717 readers
297 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:

  1. Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.

  2. No spam posting.

  3. 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.

  4. Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.

  5. Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).

  6. No trolling.

Resources:

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

Questions? DM the mods!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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...

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Logseq + SyncThing-Fork for me. The killer feature I was looking for to switch from Evernote was voice recording support, logseq is the first thing I've found that does a decent job of it while having a solid Workflowy-style "bullets all the way down" interface, which I've come to appreciate. The mobile app still leaves a lot to be desired, it's a little clunky with lots of buttons and very limited swipe gestures. Gets the job done anyhow, and the desktop app is amazing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Quillpad is the closest I've found. It's simple markdown files. It can sync with Nextcloud as well. I use it for any short note or lists. Long form stuff including journal, I use Obsidian (not open source)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It really does have that same look that Google Keep has! Thanks for recommending, I will try this! Do you have experience with syncing Quillpad with Nextcloud?

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

Yes. I have a Pi4 running NextcloudPi image on it. I sync docs, pics, even backup my Obsidian vault. It's worked really well for Quillpad in my experience. On desktop I use Iotas (Linux) if I need to update from that instead of my phone.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

I'm just using a self hosted git repo with markdown files. I was having trouble finding something open source that I could edit with vim that also had a good mobile solution. I also didn't want to get locked into a file format that was specific to an app.

Markdown is ubiquitous and I use git all the time as a developer so it was easier to tack something onto an existing workflow. It's a little janky but at least I won't be screwed by devs abandoning whatever app I was using.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

I use Joplin on top of Nextcloud.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Thanks a lot!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

I use Joplin, no complaints.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Nextcloud is a really good all-in-one solution for self hosting data

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

My solution is basically what @mojolobo mentions with Nextcloud behind it and I love the concept. Because Obsidian (via a WebDAV plugin on the phone) just syncs with the "Notes" folder in my Nextcloud root it really is just a bunch of .md (markdown) files. It gives me an added sense of security (on top of the self-hosting aspect) because I can see those files everywhere I have Nextcloud installed, I can edit them manually if I wanted to. On the PC you just point the Obsidian app to the folder, on phones you do it via a WebDAV plugin.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Results from me asking this 1Y ago: https://lemm.ee/post/4593760

Went with Joplin and using it since.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Probably Joplin is the easiest to use. Looks like OneNote but it's different in many ways.

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

I use https://silverbullet.md and love it, it's a bit more than a note taking app, but it's definitely worth it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I use nextcloud notes because I already have nextcloud and my needs are not that sophisticated

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I'm going to try this out. I hesitated because I was considering switching to Owncloud Infinite Scale, but I'm not going to bother because I decided the file structure OCIS uses is a deal-breaker (way too complex to recover in a disaster).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Welcome to the rabbit hole of selfhosted note-taking apps. https://selfh.st/apps/?tag=Note-Taking

Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a journey. You'll probably end up going through a few of these options until you find one that works for you and fits your workflow.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I've been getting on well with notesnook, the self hosting is in beta right now but its just a docker container. Docs are coming for self hosting in the near future.

https://notesnook.com/

The criteria for me when I was looking for a notes app were:

  • self hosted
  • e2e encrypted
  • supports images and other rich media as well as text
  • can use markdown for text formatting
  • supports mobile as well as some desktop interface
  • can make lists with checkable boxes
  • background sync

Notesnook hits all of these. I wish it had a dedicated desktop app but that's something I can just use a browser window for.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Notesnook has a desktop app. Does it not work with self hosted implementation?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

You're right! I missed it somehow

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.

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

Obsidian is not open source but i also think it's pretty neat.

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

Resilio sync works great for that since syncthing is on the out. I actually prefer Resilio anyways

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What's this about Syncthing now?

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

Dev discontinued the app due to google being difficult to maintain.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Ah damn. Thanks for the info

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

I migrated to the Syncthing android fork, and it's even better than the original.

https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

See my comment about Resilio sync above

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

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

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Hm at some point Anytype apps will be configurable for custom servers tho (i assumed they were already but i might have been wrong).

Obsidian also has some interesting sync plugins that dont require syncthing

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

The crypto is decent, it's electron so it's source available. If you want to ignore their hosting solution, you can disable the syncing and just take the vault from its config directory and sync it yourself

The real downsides are that it's not actual open source, so if they decided to screw around with the security or turn the crypto off somebody can't just fork it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Trilium. You'll be ~~glass~~ glad you tried it.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Are you threatening to nuke my home if I don't!?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ooh, typo. I'll edit it so that those who fulfill these kinds of things know not to glass your home.

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

Eh, if you want. It's a rental...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Good point.

load more comments
view more: next ›