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?
I think for your use case, Anytype is good enough, but itās not FOSS. Obsidian is also not FOSS. Iām not a purist, quite the contrary (in fact I use Notion), but maybe you want to check whatās behind.
Also, to help you make sense of your confusion and take a better decision, youāre comparing a bit apples and oranges.
Some of the tools, like Obsidian, are purely knowledge-management software with some productivity features sticked on top (like kanban visualizations).
Coda, Appflowy and Notion are primarily tools to build software, which can be knowledge-management software, productivity software or other stuff. They operate on a higher level of abstraction and flexibility, but out-of-the-box, for a single user, they are also probably worse than stuff like Obsidian.
āAnytype is good enough, but its not FOSSā
how so?
You cannot fork or edit the code, itās just āsource-availableā.