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 wouldn’t 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 aren’t exactly simple—they’re complex for good reasons, but that makes choosing one even harder. And don’t get me started on the endless YouTube videos on the topic—I 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 it’s not suited for everything, and there’s 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. Haven’t fully migrated to it or created an organized setup because I’m 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 journaling—it’s simple and quick to use.

What I need:

  • FOSS, but only if it’s 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 don’t care about:

Collaboration. This is for my personal use—no sharing, no team features.

Given my messy current setup and specific requirements, can anyone give me some recommendations?

    • fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.comEnglish
      5·
      2 days ago

      Outline is great. We use it combined with Plane as an alternative to Atlassian (JIRA), too. It’s basically a Linear clone. All self-hosted.

      @Im28xwa@lemdro.id I highly recommend checking out this combo. We went through a pretty extensive search to end here before cutting out Notion and other platforms.

      The one catch I found is while Outline supports OIDC for central login, Plane does not (or didn’t when I set it up).

  • rumba@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    I love the interface behind anytype but it’s not foss.

    I’ve mostly moved into obsidian with a bunch of plugins. One of the plugins in obsidian interfaces with my self-hosted llama instance, so right inside my docs I can have it generate AI content without reaching off my network.

  • kata1yst@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    2 days ago

    I use obsidian + self hosted Live Sync https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync. My data is fully encrypted and stays with me and my devices. The apps themselves are incredible, absolutely packed with features and the community is extremely engaged and actively developing awesome plugins to further extend the capabilities.

    The only downside is that it’s closed source, but the data format is widely understood, so if obsidian went belly up for some crazy reason there are import tools for basically every open source platform.

      • kata1yst@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        If you’re concerned, you can use an android firewall to block Internet access from the app aside from your sync server.

        But to be clear, the concern voiced in that thread is not the privileges that obsidian has, it’s that other apps can read the obsidian notes. So your risk profile will vary with what notes you take.

        • trolololol@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          If I got it right, file access in latest Android versions must ask permissions to the user, so it should be not an issue for you

        • jimi_henrik@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          you can use an android firewall to block Internet access from the app

          True, however, AFAIK if your phone is not rooted, you can’t have a firewall and VPN running at the same time (the firewalls I’ve seen must be configured as VPN).

          not the privileges that obsidian has

          Also true, although Obsidian has access to that shared storage, and therefore, Obsidian being closed source, you have no way of knowing what they do with the files other apps create in that storage directory. I’m not saying they are acting maliciously, but I don’t like this approach (software vulnerabilities, supply chain attacks, etc.). The devs recognized the issue in another thread, but there’s no solution to the problem as of yet.

  • ownsauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 day ago

    Filen checks off most of your requirements https://filen.io/

    • Auto-sync between my Android phone and Linux desktop
    • Journaling
    • Quick notes
    • To-do lists
    • Planning
    • Writing down thoughts
    • A really good Andoid app
    • Easy to use
    • Free for personal use

    Filen is missing project management stuff like Kanban etc, just use cryptpad for that. Cryptpad https://cryptpad.fr/

    Edit: Another comment mentioned Plane, I’d recommend it over Cryptpad. Cryptpad is really barebones in comparison even though they’re growing and adding features and integrations.

    My recommendation is now Filen + Plane https://plane.so/