cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/17051418
I love the idea of having all my quick notes, to-do lists, knowledge base, journal, plans, etc., in one single, neatly organized place. Why wouldnāt I? But deciding on which Notion alternative to use is overwhelming.
There are so many options, and all claim to be the best. Online opinions are all over the place (as expected), and these apps arenāt exactly simpleātheyāre complex for good reasons, but that makes choosing one even harder. And donāt get me started on the endless YouTube videos on the topicāI could spend weeks or months researching this and testing every single one of them, but honestly, this is not how I wanna spend my time so I will ask you guys instead.
My Current Setup:
Markor: Used it for quick thoughts, journaling, and to-do lists but stopped using it because itās not suited for everything, and thereās no sync between Android and Linux (becsuse it is android only).
Obsidian: Currently using it as my knowledge base and for long notes, simple to-do lists, and occasional journaling. Havenāt fully migrated to it or created an organized setup because Iām looking for a FOSS Notion alternative.
Standard Notes: Good for quick notes, but most features are paywalled, making it feel limited.
jtx Board: My go-to for journalingāitās simple and quick to use.
What I need:
- FOSS, but only if itās just as good as proprietary options in:
- Auto-sync between my Android phone and Linux desktop
- Journaling
- Quick notes
- To-do lists
- Planning
- Managing personal projects
- Writing down thoughts
- A really good Android app
- Easy to use
- Free for personal use
What I donāt care about:
Collaboration. This is for my personal useāno sharing, no team features.
Given my messy current setup and specific requirements, can anyone give me some recommendations?
AnyType is source available not open source, therefore not FOSS
and Logseq has a paid sync service
Good catch, I didnāt realize that with AnyType. That makes my first recommendation to OP just SilverBullet, then. Source available is better than nothing, like with Obsidian, but OP specifically asked for FOSS repos. It looks like their peer to peer sync server is MIT licensed, but their client (and client library) code is licensed under the āAny Source Available License 1.0,ā which restricts use other than for āpersonal, academic, scientific, or research and development use, or evaluating the Software, but does not include uses where the Software facilitates any transaction of economic value.ā
I ruled out Logseqās sync service due to it being both paid ($60/year minimum) and not FOSS, both things OP asked for. For my purposes, since itās not FOSS and not able to be self hosted, itās not a good option. But it makes sense to use the same file syncing solution thatās already in use, whether thatās FolderSync (or some equivalent tool) set up to sync to my server, Syncthing (though I just realized its Android client is no longer being developed as of December 2024), or even Cryptomator + some cloud storage service.