Obsidian with paid sync feature. Have obsidian on multiple computers and devices and don’t have to deal with setup or management of the sync process.

Obsidian with syncthing works offline.

Obsidian with synchronization to my Nextcloud instance

Emacs. Org. Mode.

Use Orgzly Revived for mobile sharing.

I use Logseq in my PC and my phone and I unse Syncthing to sync the notes accross my devices.

Obsidian, or a normal txt

I’ve tried 'em all. And I am always on the lookout for new apps that can do what I want. So far, Obsidian is the best.

• Joplin: adds meta data to your text files making it nearly impossible to find anything outside of Joplin unless you export

• Logseq: the closest substitute to Obsidian. The android app is almost unusable in my testing. And it’s an outlined based note app, so it requires a different mindset

• Silverbullet: such a neat project. The PWA runs great on every device I’ve tried it on. That said, I find it hard to navigate and will require more learning to take full advantage of its features

• Nextcloud Notes: decent if you already have an instance running. Not worth it just for Notes though. It’s very spartan, feature-wise

• Quillpad: the closest Google Keep alternative I’ve found so far. Does require Nextcloud insurance to sync though. At least currently.

• Acreom: very cool project. Similar to Obsidian and Logseq. Local first…unless you’re on mobile, then you are required to have an account and use their sync.

• Notesnook: has great features but does not store the notes on plain text (due to encryption), which is a deal breaker for my use case

• Memos: very easy to selfhost. Think of it like a personal twitter feed. Stores entries in a db file, so it’s out for me

I tested others, and many didnt last long enough in my testing to even be worth writing about. I find Obsidian’s folder hierarchy easier to fit around how my brain works. And the plain text files in folders, maintaining the hierarchy, is a killer feature for me. Lots of folks self host a sync solution. And I want to but am currently paying for their basic sync plan of $5/mo.

I use Joplin. The functionality is nice, but visually the app looks a little outdated in my opinion. It’s worth it though.

Nextcloud. But only because I already have it. I wouldn’t set it up just for that.

I use obsidian but I wish there was an open source notes platform that could do what I want:

1. Excalidraw support ( or similar ) with PDF import and annotation support ( this is achieved by a plugin on obsidian )
2. Vim mode
3. Markdown for everything

I have tried so many notetaking tools and the closest I ever got was using xournalpp for PDF annotation and drawing, then writing plain markdown in helix / neovim, with a live markdown rendering pane on the side. Was just too clunky though.

Obsidian with syncthing for syncing between my phone and PC.

Mostly just copious amounts of “new tab” in notepad++

Nextcloud notes is just my life now.

It depends on the notes, for me:

I’ve had an oddly long-running obsession with Tiddlywiki!

It has a bit of a learning curve, but it’s VERY flexible. My favorite part being that by default it’s just a single, portable, HTML file. No special app required besides a browser, no accounts, and you can just sync it like any other file. (Syncthing, Nextcloud, and friends)

There’s also an app called Tiddloid for Android to make managing and saving a little easier, but they open in any browser.

I have a Tiddlywiki that I use like one might use Obsidian, where I just stash stuff I’ll want to remember and maybe link between similar ideas.

And then I’m currently trying to use it to make a solution to sketch out my Savage Worlds RPG campaigns. It gets a little tricky but you can make templates, script buttons, and that kind of thing. If you’re already comfortable with web stuff you’ll probably catch on WAY better than I have.

You can also host it as a website, or on your server or whatever, to use it like any other wiki. There’s also plugins to use Markdown instead of “wikitext.”

There’s also an excellent guide to learning it at https://groktiddlywiki.com/read/ . It’s basically an online workbook using Tiddlywiki itself!

The community is also super helpful. I do wish it had a little more out of the box, but something about a customizable, portable, digital “notebook” that doesn’t require an account or hopefully-supported-in-5-years application is SUPER appealing to me. It’s quite underrated.

Also just for fun I wanted to share my favorite example someone’s been working on for quite some time now, a heavily customized D&D wiki

https://intrinsical.github.io/wiki/index.html

Tiddlywiki can be a bit dense and the documentation is slowly improving, but there’s so much potential!

I’m using https://anytype.io/. Offline applications for all major systems, synchronization out of the box.