Long version: I’m starting to burn out searching for a note system that suites my needs and values.
My values: - Privacy and Security - Open Source
My needs: - Markdown writing - Note printing (somewhat beautiful) - OS agnostic (i use Linux/iOS) - Sync across devices. - PDF storage (this is where trust comes in, as some documents contain sensitive info)
My capabilities: I run my own VPS, and as a software developer I’m familiar with git, ssh etc.
As always, tradeoffs are acceptable if I get something in return. For example it doesn’t HAVE to be open source software.
I‘m struggling to find something decent, that is not overblown. I don’t need note revision, I don’t need note-linking, I don’t need fancy productivity hacks or calendar-support.
Best wishes from Germany.
The magic of obsidian is that I rarely have to actually open obsidian. As the notes are in plain markdown, I usually just do my input from vim or vscode.
The magic of Syncthing is that it's (mostly) a set and forget thing.
The setup works on my PC, laptop, mobile and VPS.
Everything is backed up daily from a single point to a S3 backend with Restic. Also a set and forget thing.
Git history and did tracking is obviously more useful for text-based formats like md than it would be for PDFs, but there's no reason you couldn't include PDFs or other small binary files alongside your notes in the repo.
I use it with end to end encryption enabled and Dropbox as the storage backend.
Cloud part is done right. No accounts, no emails. Just your ssh key (which you probably already have).
I used to use Obsidian with iCloud sync between my Mac and iPhone. However, I found iCloud sync to be too unreliable, and Obsidian Sync was beyond my budget.
After recently exploring alternatives, I have now chosen Ulysses with Ulysses sync (taking advantage of a student discount at 11 USD/6 months). I write all my notes in Markdown and organize them exclusively within folders and subfolders, without using links and tags. This setup suits me perfectly.
I also use Signal's "Note to self" feature, with autoexpire enabled (I send ephemera to myself thereon - if I haven't used/needed/looked at it in a week, it's not important)
I'm using a Hetzner StorageShare, but you can also host it yourself, it's open source.
- Standard Notes (OSS, E2E encryption, Allows Sync)
- AnyType (OSS, E2E encryption, P2P Syncing, Have option to host a node yourself)
---If you want to separate Notes App and Syncing, then you could try following combination:
- Obsidian/LogSeq with SyncThing
- Obsidian/LogSeq with Git Sync
- dendron vscode with Git Sync
As notes are not a collections of facts but interlinkages of ideas I then take time to sit and put them together with a keyboard then save in a directory tree.
I email myself an encrypted .tar.gz of the directory tree at the end of the day.
Software is Zettlr.
It just works.