Our great sponsors
-
SurveyJS
Open-Source JSON Form Builder to Create Dynamic Forms Right in Your App. With SurveyJS form UI libraries, you can build and style forms in a fully-integrated drag & drop form builder, render them in your JS app, and store form submission data in any backend, inc. PHP, ASP.NET Core, and Node.js.
-
logseq
A local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base. Use it to organize your todo list, to write your journals, or to record your unique life.
-
-
WorkOS
The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.
-
-
-
MarkdownEditing
Powerful Markdown package for Sublime Text with better syntax understanding and good color schemes.
-
obsidian-workvault-template
An Obsidian vault template for tracking tasks, meeting notes, and performance
-
obsidian-spaced-repetition
Fight the forgetting curve by reviewing flashcards & entire notes on Obsidian.md
-
Joplin
Joplin - the secure note taking and to-do app with synchronisation capabilities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
-
awesome-trilium
A collection of interesting Trilium Notes extensions. Including themes, widgets, scripts, API extensions, etc. Trilium插件合集
-
-
InfluxDB
Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
I also tried Syncthing to sync my Obsidian vault between my desktop PC and my Android smartphone. However, I don't like having a file synced multiple times in the background while I'm editing it. Since I want my notes to be versioned with Git, I ended up finding a sync solution using Git that works just fine!
I have documented my setup with Git, the Obsidian Git plugin on Desktop and Termux on Android here: https://github.com/davidkopp/termux-scripts/
Nevertheless, I still use Syncthing to sync other files between my devices. Great tool!
The killer feature for me is how extensible the software is made to be. It truly lets you use it how you want, and makes very few assumptions on how you are meant to use the software.
Case in point: one of my favorite productivity plugins is a full-fledged Kanban board. With deep integration into Obsidian features:
- https://github.com/mgmeyers/obsidian-kanban
Obsidian is great.
For those looking for an open source alternative (or don't want to pay the Obsidian fees for professional usage) check out Logseq: https://logseq.com/
Don't fall for the trap of note taking tools. At the end of the day, if you can write down your thoughts then it does the job. Spend less time on thinking about tools and more time on writing notes.
At the same time, in my opinion you should feel comfortable in your tool. If VimWiki does not suit your needs but you still want to use vim (like I do), you could look into https://github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim to edit notes in neovim, and then view them in Obsidian using :ObsidianOpen. I like to have my terminal and Obsidian open side-by-side for this workflow.
I really like the calendar plugin - it makes it easy to write daily notes, https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-calendar-plugin.
Plume is built on top of my open source note-taking app Notes[1]. Since Plume is based on Notes, I'll of course comply with the MPL license and release all existing files that were changed (and must stay MPL licensed).
But I recently discussed my reasoning to go close-source with Plume[2]. I've been working night and day (every day) converting 4 cups of coffee into code for the last 4.5 months to create Plume. I don't want to risk not being rewarded sufficiently for it. But, I'm 99% sure that I'll either open source the core block editor or the entire app in the future.
[1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584960
If you want to setup a zettelkasten type system for free, with minimal effort / requirement on any plugins (just "templater" will be helpful) I highly recommend https://reasonabledeviations.com/2022/04/18/molecular-notes-...
No affiliation, just a happy user for over a year now.
If you take kindle highlights when you read, the https://github.com/hadynz/obsidian-kindle-plugin plugin is awesome. I use the following template to create book review ("source") files
---
---
obsidian is good for what it does, but in the last month I saw someone share heynote[1] with me that I have grown fond of as a support to my obsidian note taking
[1] https://heynote.com
I'm using https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync with IBM cloudant as described by the documentation. It handle my android phone, a windows laptop, a windows desktop and a linux desktop
I used Obsidian for a while, but for some reason https://silverbullet.md ended up resonating more with me.
Tried Zettlr a week ago, same result.
Somehow I seem nobody noticed anytype - https://anytype.io/
My setup is a little complex, but I'm very happy syncing plain-text notes between my Mac, several Linux machines, and my iPhone.
I'm still using (and loving) Notational Velocity on my Mac. Thankfully it's open source, so I was able to hack together arm64 support even though I don't know C/ObjC/C++ [0].
On my iPhone, I've been very happy with 1Writer, which has a similar interface, and is scriptable with JavaScript for power users.
I have NV configured to store plain-text notes that are stored in 1Writer's iCloud folder, so syncing happens seamlessly between them.
Finally, I sync that same directory with Syncthing to my Linux machines, where I mostly use neovim for editing.
The only feature that I'm often wishing I had is shared editing with my wife. At some point I whipped up some launchd scripts to automatically move notes tagged with `#shared` to a shared subfolder, but it never worked very well. Thankfully my wife is not really all that interested in sharing notes, so we just use Apple Notes when needed.
Tried Obsidian but was miffed at the inability to recognize / store as .txt files instead of .md (or perhaps it was vice versa) without a community plugin, and I prefer FOSS, so uninstalled after a couple days.
Have LogSeq installed but can't convince myself to use it, what I have fits my needs well enough. I'm also concerned about their funding model and the longevity of the project, the other side of the coin of FOSS I suppose.
[0]: https://github.com/n8henrie/nv
https://github.com/SublimeText-Markdown/MarkdownEditing is still a way to go for me.
I've really fallen for Obsidian myself. I became somewhat of an evangelist for it in my office. Much like the author i tend to use it as a "backstage for my life". In the interest of sharing my system with my colleagues i even turned my work vault into a template of sorts [^1].
Though that's also the most interesting part about Obsidian. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. When i presented my template to my colleagues i definitely got some comments like: "oh man, my brain doesn't work that way" or "this feels overly complex". It's interesting how a simple markdown editor has become this analogue for some of our brains.
[^1]: https://github.com/m-triassi/obsidian-workvault-template - This is still a work in progress, but if anyone has suggestions or things they'd like to share i'd be open to feedback or even PRs!
This is basically what I tried to do using the spaced repetition plugin for Obsidian but it's just not very good yet. I just checked and the author asked for a co-maintainer yesterday. I really hope they can find someone to put a bit of time in because it's a great idea and a great foundation.
https://github.com/st3v3nmw/obsidian-spaced-repetition/
Tried Obsidian for a while, loved a lot about it, but....mmm.
Obsidian out of the box is a bit limited; plugins are great and add tons of features, but then you start hitting issues with plugin maintainers abandoning plugins you rely on, or needing to make a decision between three different plugins that all do the same thing slightly different. Depending on your use case and expectations that may not be a big deal, but I really missed not having what I personally saw as core features not being officially supported.
(Also, FWIW, the sync service is a bit pricy for what it is. I get that it's how they're trying to monetise it, but...I would have preferred another pricing model, even if the total cost was just as high.)
I've personally switched to Trilium Notes which I'm finding nicer. One element I particularly like is that it has first class suport for notes being able to exist at multiple places in a tree simultaneously. I know it's a very personal thing, but for me personally being able to file notes in multiple locations "clicks" in a way that tags didn't.
Trilium Notes: https://github.com/zadam/trilium
A nice writeup on ways to use Trilium (although much of it applies to Obsidian too): https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/Patterns-of-personal-k...
The tools to manipulate SQL aren't that bad, no.
But rather than having a self explanatory markdown & flat file, now I have to start learning about the schema & making specific tools (in my preferred language) for manipulating Joplin's schema.
Suddenly I'm digging through 20 different technic specs to decode what data is where, how it works, and what I can do to it. Want to edit history? This is the best help you'll get, pray it's adequately technical to expedite you to your purpose: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/dev/spec...
As I began with, I struggle to imagine anything that generates anywhere near as much user agency as flat files and markdown. Having boring common data & systems lets me apply portable skills I already have, rather than having to skill up in some particular product's own ecosystem.
If offline on your phone is a requirement, you should be able to run trilium server there (haven't tried): https://github.com/Nriver/awesome-trilium#-android
There is managed hosting too, at a very fair price I'd say (compared to the alternatives): https://trilium.cc/
Sabre Notes is aiming to get there sooner rather than later. incredible progress last year from basically nothing https://github.com/saber-notes/saber
I tried obsidian but felt it had too many gears and knobs and spent too many times fiddling with them. I fell back on this app which is based on local markdown storage but takes it up a notch.
https://noteplan.co
The fact that everything is in plain text files on my computer is very important for me and future proofed.