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I love Notion, but also agree with all of this. Unfortunately there are no alternatives. (Waiting for this to be released, https://nvultra.com/ https://nvultra.

I love Notion, but also agree with all of this. Unfortunately there are no alternatives. (Waiting for this to be released, https://nvultra.com/ https://nvultra.com/)

sswaner 6y ago
At quick glance it looks like nvultra is very similar to Bear (https://bear.app https://bear.app). It looks like nvultra's concept of folder based notebooks is an improvement and a nice feature. In Bear I just have every note in reverse chronological order and rely on the excellent search to find what I need. I have been using Bear daily for over 3 years and the features and Markdown support are great. Not affiliated, just a fan/customer.
- selykg 6y ago
  I _really_ wish Bear had multiple notebooks. I'd love to fully separate work from personal notes for instance. It's not that I can't organize it in a way that makes sense. But if I am not at work, I really don't want to see work. Clear separation of work and home matter a lot when you work from home. The more they blur together the worse it can get. So, I'm stuck using Bear for personal use only because I don't want to contaminate my personal time.
- Jonovono 6y ago
  Last time I tried Bear there was no global hotkey to quickly launch it to search/take notes. Makes it unusable for a note taking aapp for me.
jameshe 6y ago
I remember a while back someone posted an open source alternative [0], the biggest downside being that there are fewer features and must be run locally. Also some of the same problems exist as mentioned in the OP. [0] https://github.com/konstantinmuenster/notion-clone https://github.com/konstantinmuenster/notion-clone
threatofrain 6y ago
A lot of note-taking systems promise Latex support, but the import process always bungles my notes. So far only VSC has been simple and nice.
thex10 6y ago
I clicked the link out of curiosity wondering if it's based on Notational Velocity (a project which I enjoy!). In case anyone else reading this was wondering about that... I never found an answer (though it does claim to be compatible with the nvALT and Notational Velocity url handlers).
- cpmsmith 6y ago
  Looks like nvUtra is being co-written by Brett Terpstra, who co-wrote nvALT, along with Fletcher Penny, the author of MultiMarkdown. Star-studded!
rvieira 6y ago
How is it different than, say, Obsidian? Just curious since I'm an Obsidian fan/user.
- jonwest 6y ago
  Was going to also suggest obsidian, it’s been the closest I’ve come to a Notion alternative, aside from the database aspect.
deckard1 6y ago
No alternative... to a note taking app? Am I missing something or is everyone crazy here? I use Joplin (with Syncthing) which fits the bill. But I could literally use vim and a folder on my drive. I'm baffled by the productivity "maximizers" on HN. Is this never-ending search for the right tool just an elaborate excuse for procrastination?
- chrisfosterelli 6y ago
  IMO notion is not a short-form note taking app, and I think it's not ever going to the right app for that use case (though I know lots use it that way anyway). I personally use Keep for most "notes" and notion for "documents". Some of the documents are notes but they're long-form research / project documents.
  - deckard1 6y ago
    again, you can do both of these in vim/Joplin/Obsidian/Google Docs or probably a hundred other tools.
    - chrisfosterelli 6y ago
      Sorry, I should have clarified what I meant by "documents". Notion has a really rich concept of a "document" with deep functionality that other tools typically don't have. For example notion pages can include full markdown in addition to subdocuments, databases, templates, relationships, reminders, galleries, kanban boards, formulas, lists, calendars, timelines, images, videos, web embeds, code snippets, files, maps, tweets, figma views, etc. Where other apps do have some overlap, they typically don't have similar sharing functionality. Notion pages can be private, shared, team-visible, or public on the internet. To more directly compare to your examples: * Vim - No rich document features, no mobile access, no markdown rendering, no sharing. * Joplin - I haven't used this myself but a quick look seems like it has no sharing or team features. * Obsidian - No sharing features. * Google docs - No rich document features. Keep is just a notes app. No argument that alternatives exist there. I like Keep because it works well on android and the web and keeps it simple, but there's definitely other options. FWIW I agree there is alternatives to Notion, in the strictest sense of "alternative". Quip is really close for example. For some use cases (like the article here) you could call Confluence an alternative. But they're just not as flexible or full featured as notion for such a massive variety of use cases across a team. We use notion as a client CRM, project management tool, internal documentation tool, public user guide, discussion space, note app, research log, etc. and there's not really one tool that covers all of those use cases competitively.
jonwest 6y ago
You should check out Obsidian.md. It’s been great, and open source.

I love Notion, but also agree with all of this. Unfortunately there are no alternatives. (Waiting for this to be released, https://nvultra.com/ https://nvultra.com/)

sswaner 6y ago

At quick glance it looks like nvultra is very similar to Bear (https://bear.app https://bear.app). It looks like nvultra's concept of folder based notebooks is an improvement and a nice feature. In Bear I just have every note in reverse chronological order and rely on the excellent search to find what I need. I have been using Bear daily for over 3 years and the features and Markdown support are great. Not affiliated, just a fan/customer.

selykg 6y ago
I _really_ wish Bear had multiple notebooks. I'd love to fully separate work from personal notes for instance. It's not that I can't organize it in a way that makes sense. But if I am not at work, I really don't want to see work. Clear separation of work and home matter a lot when you work from home. The more they blur together the worse it can get. So, I'm stuck using Bear for personal use only because I don't want to contaminate my personal time.
Jonovono 6y ago
Last time I tried Bear there was no global hotkey to quickly launch it to search/take notes. Makes it unusable for a note taking aapp for me.

jameshe 6y ago

I remember a while back someone posted an open source alternative [0], the biggest downside being that there are fewer features and must be run locally. Also some of the same problems exist as mentioned in the OP. [0] https://github.com/konstantinmuenster/notion-clone https://github.com/konstantinmuenster/notion-clone

threatofrain 6y ago

A lot of note-taking systems promise Latex support, but the import process always bungles my notes. So far only VSC has been simple and nice.

thex10 6y ago

I clicked the link out of curiosity wondering if it's based on Notational Velocity (a project which I enjoy!). In case anyone else reading this was wondering about that... I never found an answer (though it does claim to be compatible with the nvALT and Notational Velocity url handlers).

cpmsmith 6y ago
Looks like nvUtra is being co-written by Brett Terpstra, who co-wrote nvALT, along with Fletcher Penny, the author of MultiMarkdown. Star-studded!

rvieira 6y ago

How is it different than, say, Obsidian? Just curious since I'm an Obsidian fan/user.

jonwest 6y ago
Was going to also suggest obsidian, it’s been the closest I’ve come to a Notion alternative, aside from the database aspect.

deckard1 6y ago

No alternative... to a note taking app? Am I missing something or is everyone crazy here? I use Joplin (with Syncthing) which fits the bill. But I could literally use vim and a folder on my drive. I'm baffled by the productivity "maximizers" on HN. Is this never-ending search for the right tool just an elaborate excuse for procrastination?

chrisfosterelli 6y ago
IMO notion is not a short-form note taking app, and I think it's not ever going to the right app for that use case (though I know lots use it that way anyway). I personally use Keep for most "notes" and notion for "documents". Some of the documents are notes but they're long-form research / project documents.
- deckard1 6y ago
  again, you can do both of these in vim/Joplin/Obsidian/Google Docs or probably a hundred other tools.
  - chrisfosterelli 6y ago
    Sorry, I should have clarified what I meant by "documents". Notion has a really rich concept of a "document" with deep functionality that other tools typically don't have. For example notion pages can include full markdown in addition to subdocuments, databases, templates, relationships, reminders, galleries, kanban boards, formulas, lists, calendars, timelines, images, videos, web embeds, code snippets, files, maps, tweets, figma views, etc. Where other apps do have some overlap, they typically don't have similar sharing functionality. Notion pages can be private, shared, team-visible, or public on the internet. To more directly compare to your examples: * Vim - No rich document features, no mobile access, no markdown rendering, no sharing. * Joplin - I haven't used this myself but a quick look seems like it has no sharing or team features. * Obsidian - No sharing features. * Google docs - No rich document features. Keep is just a notes app. No argument that alternatives exist there. I like Keep because it works well on android and the web and keeps it simple, but there's definitely other options. FWIW I agree there is alternatives to Notion, in the strictest sense of "alternative". Quip is really close for example. For some use cases (like the article here) you could call Confluence an alternative. But they're just not as flexible or full featured as notion for such a massive variety of use cases across a team. We use notion as a client CRM, project management tool, internal documentation tool, public user guide, discussion space, note app, research log, etc. and there's not really one tool that covers all of those use cases competitively.

jonwest 6y ago

You should check out Obsidian.md. It’s been great, and open source.