18 ms·

A fully open-source and end-to-end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote

169 points by quyleanh 4y ago

t0bia_s 4y ago
Joplin is also open-source and support end-to-end encryption with ability to sync through common cloud services like GDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.
nvr219 4y ago
I'm still using joplin + dropbox
- CGamesPlay 4y ago
  Fun fact: Joplin log files include plaintext secret keys when you enable E2EE. I moved away from Joplin after that plus a data loss incident where Joplin decided that it wanted to delete all of my notes in the repository. Too many foot guns there! I did like the software though.
  - dp-hackernews 4y ago
    another fun fact... https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/spec/e2ee/workflow.md https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/spec/e2e...
  - XCSme 4y ago
    That issue seems to have been fixed 4 years ago: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/commit/b07fe5cc348ab8c3dd611d718fd20c8272522b79 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/commit/b07fe5cc348ab8c3d...
  - kranke155 4y ago
    I haven’t found anything better than Joplin, have you?
    - e3bc54b2 4y ago
      I tried Joplin, and most other PKM/note-taking tools out there. Eventually settled on org-mode. Encryption can be sync-time using restic/cryptomator (cloud sync), filesystem (self-hosted all the way), or save time using plain old GPG. As a bonus, there is a gigantic ecosystem around org-mode, and thanks to the platform (Emacs) it is nearly completely FLOSS and pretty much guaranteed to be around and kickin' when most commercial systems with either die, get acquired or just change too much for my taste. Probably not for everyone, though.
    - personalidea 4y ago
      Joplin has no mobile writer. Only reading. Obsidian has that. And is more extendable. That is why I switched. For me, writing a note on multiple devices is the key feature.
      - tiberiusteng 4y ago
        Joplin's Android and iOS app can both edit note contents, by tapping the '+' or 'edit' circular button at bottom right of screen.
        personalidea 4y ago
        Last time I checked (2019ish) it wasn’t possible. The times they are a changing, I guess. Will check it out again.
      - cmroanirgo 4y ago
        "Obsidian is not FOSS" https://forum.obsidian.md/t/publish-the-android-mobile-app-as-foss-on-f-droid-or-as-indendent-apk/20480/2 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/publish-the-android-mobile-app-a...
      - nvr219 4y ago
        I edit on mobile all the time... works great
  - Daffodils 4y ago
    If you don't mind me asking, can you share some more info on this? Did some searching around, and only found one [1] semi related issue from 2018. Is this the one you were referring to? [1] : https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/288 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/288
    - CGamesPlay 4y ago
      Just look in your log files. Here’s my log file with the keys scrubbed, which I discovered while hunting down an unrelated issue. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-note-conflict/22371/7 https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-...
      - stephane-klein 4y ago
        Do you have open an issue about it?
        CGamesPlay 4y ago
        I don’t. After discovering that flaw plus the issue I was originally reporting in that thread plus another issue where Joplin deleted all my notes, I just stopped using the software. I’m reasonably happy using Obsidian now, despite it being closed source and not supporting anything but proprietary sync mechanisms. I have no had any data loss issues with it.
      - stephane-klein 4y ago
        > Just look in your log files. Here’s my log file with the keys scrubbed. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-note-conflict/22371/10?u=stephane-klein https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-... I just checked my log.txt file and I can't find mention of my master password. Maybe it is fixed?
  - nvr219 4y ago
    Wait a minute, that's not fun at all!
    - dp-hackernews 4y ago
      It's also an incomplete assessment - anyway who doesn't take a backup before entering into the unknown (or inexperienced) world of new tools? - PEBKAC If you follow the instructions properly, this issue is a non-issue.
      - CGamesPlay 4y ago
        Of course I resorted from backup. And then I stopped using the application which has such problems. Still, after discovering that the keys were in the log file, it was definitely a “final nail in the coffin” for me.
        dp-hackernews 4y ago
        Have you read this? https://joplinapp.org/spec/e2ee/ https://joplinapp.org/spec/e2ee/ Master Keys The master keys are used to encrypt and decrypt data. They can be generated from the Encryption Service and are saved to the database. They are themselves encrypted via a user password using a strong encryption method. These encrypted master keys are transmitted with the sync data so that they can be available to each client. Each client will need to supply the user password to decrypt each key.
627467 4y ago
I get that Evernote seems stagnant (or even dead by many accounts) and it certainly is lacking in critical features such as e2ee, but all these (paid) alternatives are only covering a small fraction of Evernote functionally: mostly text notes. No OCR, no easy meeting notes, no templates... Luckily, where I am I've access to (really!) low cost EN subscription (maybe I've got grandfathered into it? Right now it works out less than 1usd/year) So I'm just never tempted to find alternatives despite it's shortcomings.
- atemerev 4y ago
  Yes, I use Evernote as a searchable scanned documents database (I don’t need plain text notes, and I have thousands of scans lying around from the last 12 years). Every bill, receipt, signed contract, insurance claim etc. gets scanned and goes to Evernote, with tags for quick access. I pay full $80/year for it. I would really love to switch to something else, but there is no alternative. There is no other document database with built-in OCR. I tried for years to find it, but apparently there is nothing else. Managing plain-text notes is the easiest part. I could do it with Orgmode if I wanted to. But I don’t know how I could manage my scanned documents, if not in Evernote.
  - Godel_unicode 4y ago
    OneNote
    - atemerev 4y ago
      Oh, they added OCR and tags recently. I’ll give it a try again.
Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
Logseq
- e3bc54b2 4y ago
  I'd love to use Logseq, but in my experience the mobile app is quite buggy. Otherwise it works surprisingly well with my existing org-mode notes, if not 100% compatible.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    Haven't tried the mobile app, still waiting for that. I take horrible notes on Google keep and then port them to logseq, usually it's not a lot of work because what I can write on phone takes longer than pc
  - fsiefken 4y ago
    I wonder if one could get a sufficiently mobile experience with starting starting the regular electron software on xvnc on a linux distro on android termux and with an android vnc client session automatically connecting to the fullscreen android display resulution with css tweaks for the mobile display.
Brajeshwar 4y ago
I have moved on to a plaintext lifestyle that isn't tied to any tooling. If I have to protect/encrypt the content, I will look at doing that at the container -- such as a Vault. Tools such as Obsidian[1] are a good option for me, as I can use it as that -- a tool and not worry about the content being tied to any platform - open or otherwise. For your Vault protection, tools such as the Cryptomator[2] works well. I reason that tools will come and go. Even for many open source ones, I had my experience of being unable to rebuild/recompile because of the outdated libraries, unmaintained code, etc. The world moves on, real fast. Plain text is and will still work in the future. I'm also OK, spicing it up a bit with MarkDown, which still can maintain human readability even if the reader doesn't know what Markdowns are. I'm not against using tooling in a group/team, where the tooling plays a good role in making the experience smooth. I would also definitely love to pay for tools that helps the team improve and save time and frustrations. Best of luck to your product, and I hope it serves the use cases of others who need it. 1. https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md 2. https://cryptomator.org https://cryptomator.org
- neilv 4y ago
  Similar here. For personal use, I don't bother with the extra hassle of wiki software, but just maintain Markdown files in my `~/wiki/` directory. For example, my notes about Stable Fusion are in `~/wiki/stable-fusion.md`. Since I have my Emacs Markdown mode tweaked to be semi-WYSIWYG, the only downside is that links between pages is a little messier than if I used wiki software. (I might tweak Emacs a bit more, to have link text in square brackets navigate to the right filename.) Someday, these files might end up in wiki software, but I'm in no hurry, and I'm capturing and accessing the info now.
  - Reitet00 4y ago
    Could you elaborate more on your Emacs Markdown tweaks? It sounds very interesting!
    - neilv 4y ago
      Face tweaks alone make it a lot more pleasant. For a live table-of-contents sidebar you can toggle on and off, I use `imenu-list`, and there's also some face tweaks to make that more muted. (custom-set-faces ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom. ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful. ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance. ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right. [...] '(markdown-blockquote-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "gray50")))) '(markdown-bold-face ((t (:inherit nil :slant normal :weight bold)))) '(markdown-header-delimiter-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-header-face ((t (:inherit nil :weight bold :family "sans")))) '(markdown-header-face-1 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 2.0)))) '(markdown-header-face-2 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.6)))) '(markdown-header-face-3 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.2)))) '(markdown-header-face-4 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.1)))) '(markdown-header-face-5 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.0)))) '(markdown-html-attr-name-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-html-attr-value-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-html-tag-name-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-inline-code-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "green4")))) '(markdown-italic-face ((t (:inherit nil :slant italic :weight normal)))) '(markdown-language-keyword-face ((t (:foreground "gray80")))) '(markdown-link-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "blue3" :underline t)))) '(markdown-pre-face ((t (:inherit markdown-inline-code-face :background "#f4fff4")))) '(markdown-reference-face ((t (:weight bold)))) '(markdown-strike-through-face ((t (:inherit nil :strike-through t)))) '(markdown-table-face ((t (:inherit nil :background "#fafafa")))) '(markdown-url-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) [...] '(imenu-list-entry-face ((t (:family "Sans Serif")))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-0 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-1 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-2 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-3 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-subalist-face-0 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face-0)))) '(imenu-list-entry-subalist-face-1 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face-1)))) [...])
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
My primary requirement for personal note taking is self hosting. That's the only thing that assures me that my years of notes will be available when I wake up every morning. (And if I don't wake up one morning, I doubt I'll miss the availability of my notes)
- redditor98654 4y ago
  I am curious what kind of information do you have in your notes that you keep them around for years. Not trying to mock or anything but I am wondering if I too would benefit from such a thing. Most of my notes are ephemeral and I delete them soon (within weeks at most).
  - BLKNSLVR 4y ago
    I write lots of thoughts, plans, logs of activity, to do lists that stretch back, literally, years (and yes, there's a limit to the practicality of that, but they can also be culled, bit it's also just text, so it's not like it's taking up precious storage space). I always tag each 'note' so it's mostly findable down the track. I use it to document the backup process of my homelab, and so those notes grow and change over a relatively large period of time. Also document various docker-compose scripts and straight docker create scripts for the various services running on my network, and they get tweaked with some regularity (updating PiHole and Jellyfin instances etc.) Thinking about your question, "notes" probably is an understatement of how I use it. "Documentation" is probably a more accurate description. Something like my "digital life wiki". FYI I use noteself, self-hosted using a couchdb instance. Noteself is an extension of tiddlywiki with pouchdb built in as a local in-browser data store (which, with the setup I use syncs with a couchdb instance). I've used it for a number of years.
  - irrational 4y ago
    Not OP, but I’m constantly reading and researching things. I have many decades of notes about a multitude of topics I’d hate to lose.
- fguerraz 4y ago
  StandardNotes makes daily encrypted exports to your Google drive, mailbox, and others. That's not self hosted but it's texts files so... Good enough for me.
exfil 4y ago
When I see 'pricing' on top of page and sign on requiring email & password, it's better to close tab.
- mark_story 4y ago
  Why? We all have to pay for shelter and food. This looks like what could become a fantastic business and product. I applaud their commitments to privacy and open-source at such an early stage. I am looking forward to hearing about Notesnook more in the future.
  - exfil 4y ago
    You're right. Probably pricing is justified. Just hate to give email details for login.
hosh 4y ago
Encryption is nice, but what I really want is local-first, multi-device, and a very short time between when I launch the app and when I start being able to type. When I want to capture an idea or want to spend my limited time journalling, I want it fast. Hyperlinking and adding photos are nice. Evernote has been focusing on collaborative features I don’t care about. Startup time to when I can start typing have been getting worse over the years. I’ve been seriously looking for a good replacement that lets me import from Evernote.
- mdeepwell 4y ago
  Joplin is significantly better than Evernote for being quick to start typing. Sync runs in the background without preventing you from editing which is why I moved over. Has a decent ability to import notes from Evernote to Joplin as well.
  - emaro 4y ago
    The thing that bothered me with joplin is that you can only import/export plain md files and not just use it to work with already existing folders and files (at least when I used it the last time).
- dr_dshiv 4y ago
  Google Keep, everyday (till they kill it)
  - EGreg 4y ago
    “till they kill it” How sad, that we are dependent on third parties like this… I have seen people openly hoping and begging Twitter to add an Edit button. Really? This is why we need open source.
  - chaxor 4y ago
    This is seriously sad (not just Google keep, but also why other note taking software like Evernote, apple notes, etc) that there is a worry that companies may shut any one of these down, or that they aren't encrypted and secure, or that they're not FOSS. There's good options that fit these criteria, such as obsidian on a LAN with syncthing.
conradev 4y ago
> Notesnook is our proof that privacy does not (always) have to come at the cost of convenience Won’t implementing note sharing be harder for this app than for one that isn’t encrypted? Encrypted data storage is harder to work with than plaintext data storage and until developers have good tools to close that gap, they’re not going to.
oefrha 4y ago
Warning: desktop app is Electron.
- sha-3 4y ago
  I haven't yet found any privacy focused note-taking app that doesn't use Electron. It's a shame.
  - radiospiel 4y ago
    FSNotes is macOS native
- vie00001 4y ago
  What makes electron bad? Just being curious - dont know much about it.
  - oefrha 4y ago
    Slower startup, worse responsiveness, higher CPU and RAM usage, could hog CPU even at idle.
  - aizen89 4y ago
    imho: - Heavy and slow (Use a lot of RAM and CPU, laptop definitely won't be happy) - Large installation size (about 120Mb) - Security problems
- coldblues 4y ago
  Didn't even have to check. I just assumed it was Electron at first sight. That's just how software is these days. And some wonder why so many people are still using Emacs or Apple Notes to take notes. Even the most minimal input lag and stuttering gets me out of my writing mood. Electron is the gaming equivalent of playing at 30 FPS with motion blur.
maxloh 4y ago
What's the difference with outline[1]? It is a very similar service with markdown support. [1]: https://www.getoutline.com/ https://www.getoutline.com/
gopiandcode 4y ago
Wow! GPL-licensed, Free as in Freedom, encrypted note taking! This is great. I think I'll probably end up self hosting this just on principle, but I signed up for a year just to show support! The fact that the Notesnook community is on discord is a little annoying, but other than that, I have no qualms with this, can't wait to try it out.
khalilravanna 4y ago
Another good option which is encrypted but not open source is Inkdrop. I’ve been loving it for years (especially with the vim keybindings plugin). https://www.inkdrop.app/ https://www.inkdrop.app/
yuuta 4y ago
I had been using Xournal++ for a year, and it is truly amazing.
aizen89 4y ago
If it's on Electron, then I probably won't use it.
lopkeny12ko 4y ago
Unless I'm missing something very obvious, the source repository https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook only includes the client apps and not the server, and the parent organization "streetwriters" doesn't seem to have any other repositories for the server. How are you supposed to run your own instance without that? There's also a lot of marketing-speak in the repository documentation and little to no documentation on how to actually deploy it. Overall this leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Compare this for example to Bookstack, which gets right to the point for how to install and deploy, with no marketing nonsense. https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack
- snthd 4y ago
  https://notesnook.com/roadmap/ https://notesnook.com/roadmap/ >September onwards >Open source sync server + self hosting
  - generalizations 4y ago
    Then I guess after september they can call it "fully open source". For now, it's closed source with an open source client.
  - lupire 4y ago
    What reason is there for not pushing the server to GitHub now?
    - Xylakant 4y ago
      I can think of a few: * not ready * in technical review * in legal review (can all code be published under an OS license?) * in security review * missing documentation I’m sure there’s plenty of other possible reasons. They seem to have a roadmap that they want to follow, so that implies they have thought about what they need in place to open source the components.
- lupire 4y ago
  Flagged the submission for misleading title.
mthld 4y ago
If you are interested in this kind of app you may like to take a look at https://cryptpad.org https://cryptpad.org, a full featured collaborative office suite. End-to-end encrypted, built from the ground to know as little as needed about you and easy to host. Try it on our flagship instance: https://cryptpad.fr https://cryptpad.fr, no registration required!
ementally 4y ago
Great competitive product, can't wait to see what they will offer more than standard notes. Good luck!
ianopolous 4y ago
If you're looking for a fully open source, self-hostable, E2EE wiki web app then you might be interested in Peergos - https://peergos.org https://peergos.org We have a markdown based wiki viewer and editor- https://peergos.org/posts/markdown-browser https://peergos.org/posts/markdown-browser There is also secure sharing of documents or folders with others. Peergos is a generic P2P E2EE filesystem with a bunch of apps on top, and you can write your own too - https://peergos.org/posts/a-better-web https://peergos.org/posts/a-better-web Disclaimer: co-founder here
- speps 4y ago
  I love this part: https://github.com/Peergos/ipfs-nucleus https://github.com/Peergos/ipfs-nucleus I've tried IPFS before but I hit a bug when using it so gave up on my idea for a side project. Might give this a go!
  - ianopolous 4y ago
    Thanks! The main reason we wrote ipfs-nucleus was to add access control at the block level. It also let us keep it super simple and thus reduce attack surface.
- kid64 4y ago
  Demo page is down
  - ianopolous 4y ago
    Where do you see a demo link?
- maxloh 4y ago
  The UI seems to be ugly.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jacooper 4y ago
There are other alternatives Etesync(notes, calendar, contacts, etc) with E2E Simple notes and joblin
samsquire 4y ago
I am more likely to journal and blog if the friction to creating a post is as simple as opening a document and writing. The important part of journalling or note software is that you actually create notes. I did use Hetzner to run a Wordpress blog but it had an overhead of server expenses and keeping Wordpress up-to-date. I don't want my data trapped in a proprietary system where it is difficult to export, so I use plaintext. I looked into Publii [1] but I prefer my current plaintext setup. Today I journal software ideas, computer ideas, startup ideas and community ideas on GitHub in the open, as README.md files. My journal is all public on GitHub at the following links. There are over 550+ journal entries, I am sure you shall enjoy them. https://github.com/samsquire/ideas https://github.com/samsquire/ideas https://github.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://github.com/samsquire/startups https://github.com/samsquire/startups https://getpublii.com/ https://getpublii.com/
barefeg 4y ago
More and more I’m thinking of having open software that runs on client hardware and that sync via simple P2P connections. For example having some Evernote clone where the mobile app is in sync with the desktop app without using a centralized server. My issue is being trapped in SaaS platforms with bad business models that threaten the existence of the service. Think of Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook, heck even Uber and Uber eats clones. Though I’m not into the crypto stuff. I’d be OK if banks kept centralized ledgers that these free-to-use privacy-oriented P2P services could use, for crowd sourced applications. I really miss the feeling of the internet in the 90s and 00s but how could people work on these projects while still make a living?
- bityard 4y ago
  You can do that today with SyncThing plus your native notes editor of choice.
santimoller66 4y ago
[flagged]
mindaslab 4y ago
I just use a txt file for note-taking, and it rocks
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
_iyhy 4y ago
Misses note linking that I'm growingly getting dependent on.

169 points by quyleanh 4y ago

Joplin is also open-source and support end-to-end encryption with ability to sync through common cloud services like GDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.

nvr219 4y ago

I'm still using joplin + dropbox

CGamesPlay 4y ago
Fun fact: Joplin log files include plaintext secret keys when you enable E2EE. I moved away from Joplin after that plus a data loss incident where Joplin decided that it wanted to delete all of my notes in the repository. Too many foot guns there! I did like the software though.
- dp-hackernews 4y ago
  another fun fact... https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/spec/e2ee/workflow.md https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/readme/spec/e2e...
- XCSme 4y ago
  That issue seems to have been fixed 4 years ago: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/commit/b07fe5cc348ab8c3dd611d718fd20c8272522b79 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/commit/b07fe5cc348ab8c3d...
- kranke155 4y ago
  I haven’t found anything better than Joplin, have you?
  - e3bc54b2 4y ago
    I tried Joplin, and most other PKM/note-taking tools out there. Eventually settled on org-mode. Encryption can be sync-time using restic/cryptomator (cloud sync), filesystem (self-hosted all the way), or save time using plain old GPG. As a bonus, there is a gigantic ecosystem around org-mode, and thanks to the platform (Emacs) it is nearly completely FLOSS and pretty much guaranteed to be around and kickin' when most commercial systems with either die, get acquired or just change too much for my taste. Probably not for everyone, though.
  - personalidea 4y ago
    Joplin has no mobile writer. Only reading. Obsidian has that. And is more extendable. That is why I switched. For me, writing a note on multiple devices is the key feature.
    - tiberiusteng 4y ago
      Joplin's Android and iOS app can both edit note contents, by tapping the '+' or 'edit' circular button at bottom right of screen.
      - personalidea 4y ago
        Last time I checked (2019ish) it wasn’t possible. The times they are a changing, I guess. Will check it out again.
    - cmroanirgo 4y ago
      "Obsidian is not FOSS" https://forum.obsidian.md/t/publish-the-android-mobile-app-as-foss-on-f-droid-or-as-indendent-apk/20480/2 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/publish-the-android-mobile-app-a...
    - nvr219 4y ago
      I edit on mobile all the time... works great
- Daffodils 4y ago
  If you don't mind me asking, can you share some more info on this? Did some searching around, and only found one [1] semi related issue from 2018. Is this the one you were referring to? [1] : https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/288 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/288
  - CGamesPlay 4y ago
    Just look in your log files. Here’s my log file with the keys scrubbed, which I discovered while hunting down an unrelated issue. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-note-conflict/22371/7 https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-...
    - stephane-klein 4y ago
      Do you have open an issue about it?
      - CGamesPlay 4y ago
        I don’t. After discovering that flaw plus the issue I was originally reporting in that thread plus another issue where Joplin deleted all my notes, I just stopped using the software. I’m reasonably happy using Obsidian now, despite it being closed source and not supporting anything but proprietary sync mechanisms. I have no had any data loss issues with it.
    - stephane-klein 4y ago
      > Just look in your log files. Here’s my log file with the keys scrubbed. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-note-conflict/22371/10?u=stephane-klein https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/keep-original-notebook-on-... I just checked my log.txt file and I can't find mention of my master password. Maybe it is fixed?
- nvr219 4y ago
  Wait a minute, that's not fun at all!
  - dp-hackernews 4y ago
    It's also an incomplete assessment - anyway who doesn't take a backup before entering into the unknown (or inexperienced) world of new tools? - PEBKAC If you follow the instructions properly, this issue is a non-issue.
    - CGamesPlay 4y ago
      Of course I resorted from backup. And then I stopped using the application which has such problems. Still, after discovering that the keys were in the log file, it was definitely a “final nail in the coffin” for me.
      - dp-hackernews 4y ago
        Have you read this? https://joplinapp.org/spec/e2ee/ https://joplinapp.org/spec/e2ee/ Master Keys The master keys are used to encrypt and decrypt data. They can be generated from the Encryption Service and are saved to the database. They are themselves encrypted via a user password using a strong encryption method. These encrypted master keys are transmitted with the sync data so that they can be available to each client. Each client will need to supply the user password to decrypt each key.

627467 4y ago

I get that Evernote seems stagnant (or even dead by many accounts) and it certainly is lacking in critical features such as e2ee, but all these (paid) alternatives are only covering a small fraction of Evernote functionally: mostly text notes. No OCR, no easy meeting notes, no templates... Luckily, where I am I've access to (really!) low cost EN subscription (maybe I've got grandfathered into it? Right now it works out less than 1usd/year) So I'm just never tempted to find alternatives despite it's shortcomings.

atemerev 4y ago
Yes, I use Evernote as a searchable scanned documents database (I don’t need plain text notes, and I have thousands of scans lying around from the last 12 years). Every bill, receipt, signed contract, insurance claim etc. gets scanned and goes to Evernote, with tags for quick access. I pay full $80/year for it. I would really love to switch to something else, but there is no alternative. There is no other document database with built-in OCR. I tried for years to find it, but apparently there is nothing else. Managing plain-text notes is the easiest part. I could do it with Orgmode if I wanted to. But I don’t know how I could manage my scanned documents, if not in Evernote.
- Godel_unicode 4y ago
  OneNote
  - atemerev 4y ago
    Oh, they added OCR and tags recently. I’ll give it a try again.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago

Logseq

e3bc54b2 4y ago
I'd love to use Logseq, but in my experience the mobile app is quite buggy. Otherwise it works surprisingly well with my existing org-mode notes, if not 100% compatible.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Haven't tried the mobile app, still waiting for that. I take horrible notes on Google keep and then port them to logseq, usually it's not a lot of work because what I can write on phone takes longer than pc
- fsiefken 4y ago
  I wonder if one could get a sufficiently mobile experience with starting starting the regular electron software on xvnc on a linux distro on android termux and with an android vnc client session automatically connecting to the fullscreen android display resulution with css tweaks for the mobile display.

Brajeshwar 4y ago

I have moved on to a plaintext lifestyle that isn't tied to any tooling. If I have to protect/encrypt the content, I will look at doing that at the container -- such as a Vault. Tools such as Obsidian[1] are a good option for me, as I can use it as that -- a tool and not worry about the content being tied to any platform - open or otherwise. For your Vault protection, tools such as the Cryptomator[2] works well. I reason that tools will come and go. Even for many open source ones, I had my experience of being unable to rebuild/recompile because of the outdated libraries, unmaintained code, etc. The world moves on, real fast. Plain text is and will still work in the future. I'm also OK, spicing it up a bit with MarkDown, which still can maintain human readability even if the reader doesn't know what Markdowns are. I'm not against using tooling in a group/team, where the tooling plays a good role in making the experience smooth. I would also definitely love to pay for tools that helps the team improve and save time and frustrations. Best of luck to your product, and I hope it serves the use cases of others who need it. 1. https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md 2. https://cryptomator.org https://cryptomator.org

neilv 4y ago
Similar here. For personal use, I don't bother with the extra hassle of wiki software, but just maintain Markdown files in my `~/wiki/` directory. For example, my notes about Stable Fusion are in `~/wiki/stable-fusion.md`. Since I have my Emacs Markdown mode tweaked to be semi-WYSIWYG, the only downside is that links between pages is a little messier than if I used wiki software. (I might tweak Emacs a bit more, to have link text in square brackets navigate to the right filename.) Someday, these files might end up in wiki software, but I'm in no hurry, and I'm capturing and accessing the info now.
- Reitet00 4y ago
  Could you elaborate more on your Emacs Markdown tweaks? It sounds very interesting!
  - neilv 4y ago
    Face tweaks alone make it a lot more pleasant. For a live table-of-contents sidebar you can toggle on and off, I use `imenu-list`, and there's also some face tweaks to make that more muted. (custom-set-faces ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom. ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful. ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance. ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right. [...] '(markdown-blockquote-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "gray50")))) '(markdown-bold-face ((t (:inherit nil :slant normal :weight bold)))) '(markdown-header-delimiter-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-header-face ((t (:inherit nil :weight bold :family "sans")))) '(markdown-header-face-1 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 2.0)))) '(markdown-header-face-2 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.6)))) '(markdown-header-face-3 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.2)))) '(markdown-header-face-4 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.1)))) '(markdown-header-face-5 ((t (:inherit markdown-header-face :height 1.0)))) '(markdown-html-attr-name-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-html-attr-value-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-html-tag-name-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) '(markdown-inline-code-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "green4")))) '(markdown-italic-face ((t (:inherit nil :slant italic :weight normal)))) '(markdown-language-keyword-face ((t (:foreground "gray80")))) '(markdown-link-face ((t (:inherit nil :foreground "blue3" :underline t)))) '(markdown-pre-face ((t (:inherit markdown-inline-code-face :background "#f4fff4")))) '(markdown-reference-face ((t (:weight bold)))) '(markdown-strike-through-face ((t (:inherit nil :strike-through t)))) '(markdown-table-face ((t (:inherit nil :background "#fafafa")))) '(markdown-url-face ((t (:inherit markdown-markup-face)))) [...] '(imenu-list-entry-face ((t (:family "Sans Serif")))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-0 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-1 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-2 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-face-3 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face)))) '(imenu-list-entry-subalist-face-0 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face-0)))) '(imenu-list-entry-subalist-face-1 ((t (:inherit imenu-list-entry-face-1)))) [...])

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

My primary requirement for personal note taking is self hosting. That's the only thing that assures me that my years of notes will be available when I wake up every morning. (And if I don't wake up one morning, I doubt I'll miss the availability of my notes)

redditor98654 4y ago
I am curious what kind of information do you have in your notes that you keep them around for years. Not trying to mock or anything but I am wondering if I too would benefit from such a thing. Most of my notes are ephemeral and I delete them soon (within weeks at most).
- BLKNSLVR 4y ago
  I write lots of thoughts, plans, logs of activity, to do lists that stretch back, literally, years (and yes, there's a limit to the practicality of that, but they can also be culled, bit it's also just text, so it's not like it's taking up precious storage space). I always tag each 'note' so it's mostly findable down the track. I use it to document the backup process of my homelab, and so those notes grow and change over a relatively large period of time. Also document various docker-compose scripts and straight docker create scripts for the various services running on my network, and they get tweaked with some regularity (updating PiHole and Jellyfin instances etc.) Thinking about your question, "notes" probably is an understatement of how I use it. "Documentation" is probably a more accurate description. Something like my "digital life wiki". FYI I use noteself, self-hosted using a couchdb instance. Noteself is an extension of tiddlywiki with pouchdb built in as a local in-browser data store (which, with the setup I use syncs with a couchdb instance). I've used it for a number of years.
- irrational 4y ago
  Not OP, but I’m constantly reading and researching things. I have many decades of notes about a multitude of topics I’d hate to lose.
fguerraz 4y ago
StandardNotes makes daily encrypted exports to your Google drive, mailbox, and others. That's not self hosted but it's texts files so... Good enough for me.

exfil 4y ago

When I see 'pricing' on top of page and sign on requiring email & password, it's better to close tab.

mark_story 4y ago
Why? We all have to pay for shelter and food. This looks like what could become a fantastic business and product. I applaud their commitments to privacy and open-source at such an early stage. I am looking forward to hearing about Notesnook more in the future.
- exfil 4y ago
  You're right. Probably pricing is justified. Just hate to give email details for login.

hosh 4y ago

Encryption is nice, but what I really want is local-first, multi-device, and a very short time between when I launch the app and when I start being able to type. When I want to capture an idea or want to spend my limited time journalling, I want it fast. Hyperlinking and adding photos are nice. Evernote has been focusing on collaborative features I don’t care about. Startup time to when I can start typing have been getting worse over the years. I’ve been seriously looking for a good replacement that lets me import from Evernote.

mdeepwell 4y ago
Joplin is significantly better than Evernote for being quick to start typing. Sync runs in the background without preventing you from editing which is why I moved over. Has a decent ability to import notes from Evernote to Joplin as well.
- emaro 4y ago
  The thing that bothered me with joplin is that you can only import/export plain md files and not just use it to work with already existing folders and files (at least when I used it the last time).
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Google Keep, everyday (till they kill it)
- EGreg 4y ago
  “till they kill it” How sad, that we are dependent on third parties like this… I have seen people openly hoping and begging Twitter to add an Edit button. Really? This is why we need open source.
- chaxor 4y ago
  This is seriously sad (not just Google keep, but also why other note taking software like Evernote, apple notes, etc) that there is a worry that companies may shut any one of these down, or that they aren't encrypted and secure, or that they're not FOSS. There's good options that fit these criteria, such as obsidian on a LAN with syncthing.

conradev 4y ago

> Notesnook is our proof that privacy does not (always) have to come at the cost of convenience Won’t implementing note sharing be harder for this app than for one that isn’t encrypted? Encrypted data storage is harder to work with than plaintext data storage and until developers have good tools to close that gap, they’re not going to.

oefrha 4y ago

Warning: desktop app is Electron.

sha-3 4y ago
I haven't yet found any privacy focused note-taking app that doesn't use Electron. It's a shame.
- radiospiel 4y ago
  FSNotes is macOS native
vie00001 4y ago
What makes electron bad? Just being curious - dont know much about it.
- oefrha 4y ago
  Slower startup, worse responsiveness, higher CPU and RAM usage, could hog CPU even at idle.
- aizen89 4y ago
  imho: - Heavy and slow (Use a lot of RAM and CPU, laptop definitely won't be happy) - Large installation size (about 120Mb) - Security problems
coldblues 4y ago
Didn't even have to check. I just assumed it was Electron at first sight. That's just how software is these days. And some wonder why so many people are still using Emacs or Apple Notes to take notes. Even the most minimal input lag and stuttering gets me out of my writing mood. Electron is the gaming equivalent of playing at 30 FPS with motion blur.

maxloh 4y ago

What's the difference with outline[1]? It is a very similar service with markdown support. [1]: https://www.getoutline.com/ https://www.getoutline.com/

gopiandcode 4y ago

Wow! GPL-licensed, Free as in Freedom, encrypted note taking! This is great. I think I'll probably end up self hosting this just on principle, but I signed up for a year just to show support! The fact that the Notesnook community is on discord is a little annoying, but other than that, I have no qualms with this, can't wait to try it out.

khalilravanna 4y ago

Another good option which is encrypted but not open source is Inkdrop. I’ve been loving it for years (especially with the vim keybindings plugin). https://www.inkdrop.app/ https://www.inkdrop.app/

yuuta 4y ago

I had been using Xournal++ for a year, and it is truly amazing.

aizen89 4y ago

If it's on Electron, then I probably won't use it.

lopkeny12ko 4y ago

Unless I'm missing something very obvious, the source repository https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook only includes the client apps and not the server, and the parent organization "streetwriters" doesn't seem to have any other repositories for the server. How are you supposed to run your own instance without that? There's also a lot of marketing-speak in the repository documentation and little to no documentation on how to actually deploy it. Overall this leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Compare this for example to Bookstack, which gets right to the point for how to install and deploy, with no marketing nonsense. https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack

snthd 4y ago
https://notesnook.com/roadmap/ https://notesnook.com/roadmap/ >September onwards >Open source sync server + self hosting
- generalizations 4y ago
  Then I guess after september they can call it "fully open source". For now, it's closed source with an open source client.
- lupire 4y ago
  What reason is there for not pushing the server to GitHub now?
  - Xylakant 4y ago
    I can think of a few: * not ready * in technical review * in legal review (can all code be published under an OS license?) * in security review * missing documentation I’m sure there’s plenty of other possible reasons. They seem to have a roadmap that they want to follow, so that implies they have thought about what they need in place to open source the components.
lupire 4y ago
Flagged the submission for misleading title.

mthld 4y ago

If you are interested in this kind of app you may like to take a look at https://cryptpad.org https://cryptpad.org, a full featured collaborative office suite. End-to-end encrypted, built from the ground to know as little as needed about you and easy to host. Try it on our flagship instance: https://cryptpad.fr https://cryptpad.fr, no registration required!

ementally 4y ago

Great competitive product, can't wait to see what they will offer more than standard notes. Good luck!

ianopolous 4y ago

If you're looking for a fully open source, self-hostable, E2EE wiki web app then you might be interested in Peergos - https://peergos.org https://peergos.org We have a markdown based wiki viewer and editor- https://peergos.org/posts/markdown-browser https://peergos.org/posts/markdown-browser There is also secure sharing of documents or folders with others. Peergos is a generic P2P E2EE filesystem with a bunch of apps on top, and you can write your own too - https://peergos.org/posts/a-better-web https://peergos.org/posts/a-better-web Disclaimer: co-founder here

speps 4y ago
I love this part: https://github.com/Peergos/ipfs-nucleus https://github.com/Peergos/ipfs-nucleus I've tried IPFS before but I hit a bug when using it so gave up on my idea for a side project. Might give this a go!
- ianopolous 4y ago
  Thanks! The main reason we wrote ipfs-nucleus was to add access control at the block level. It also let us keep it super simple and thus reduce attack surface.
kid64 4y ago
Demo page is down
- ianopolous 4y ago
  Where do you see a demo link?
maxloh 4y ago
The UI seems to be ugly.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jacooper 4y ago

There are other alternatives Etesync(notes, calendar, contacts, etc) with E2E Simple notes and joblin

samsquire 4y ago

I am more likely to journal and blog if the friction to creating a post is as simple as opening a document and writing. The important part of journalling or note software is that you actually create notes. I did use Hetzner to run a Wordpress blog but it had an overhead of server expenses and keeping Wordpress up-to-date. I don't want my data trapped in a proprietary system where it is difficult to export, so I use plaintext. I looked into Publii [1] but I prefer my current plaintext setup. Today I journal software ideas, computer ideas, startup ideas and community ideas on GitHub in the open, as README.md files. My journal is all public on GitHub at the following links. There are over 550+ journal entries, I am sure you shall enjoy them. https://github.com/samsquire/ideas https://github.com/samsquire/ideas https://github.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://github.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://github.com/samsquire/startups https://github.com/samsquire/startups https://getpublii.com/ https://getpublii.com/

barefeg 4y ago

More and more I’m thinking of having open software that runs on client hardware and that sync via simple P2P connections. For example having some Evernote clone where the mobile app is in sync with the desktop app without using a centralized server. My issue is being trapped in SaaS platforms with bad business models that threaten the existence of the service. Think of Instagram, Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook, heck even Uber and Uber eats clones. Though I’m not into the crypto stuff. I’d be OK if banks kept centralized ledgers that these free-to-use privacy-oriented P2P services could use, for crowd sourced applications. I really miss the feeling of the internet in the 90s and 00s but how could people work on these projects while still make a living?

bityard 4y ago
You can do that today with SyncThing plus your native notes editor of choice.

santimoller66 4y ago

[flagged]

mindaslab 4y ago

I just use a txt file for note-taking, and it rocks

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

_iyhy 4y ago

Misses note linking that I'm growingly getting dependent on.