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For an opensource alternative to Obsidian checkout Logseq (1). I spent a while thinking obsidian was opensource out of my own ignorance and was disappointed whe
by harporoeder 3y ago
For an opensource alternative to Obsidian checkout Logseq (1). I spent a while thinking obsidian was opensource out of my own ignorance and was disappointed when I learned it was not. I mistook the extensive github presence for the actual product being open.
1: https://logseq.com/ https://logseq.com/
- adhamsalama 3y agoI find SiYuan Note to be a good open source local-first alternative to Obsidian, as it's like a mix of Notion and Obsidian.
- ssgodderidge 3y agoLooks cool! I couldn’t tell from the homepage, but it looks like they support cross-device syncing [1]. The big gap left is the rich plugin environment that Obsidian has. 1: https://docs.logseq.com/#/page/how%20to%20sync%20your%20logseq%20graph%20across%20devices https://docs.logseq.com/#/page/how%20to%20sync%20your%20logs...
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y agoI think sync is a non-feature, as you can just ride on your existing solution. (Do one thing and do it well). For example, I use syncthing [1] with Obsidian to sync files off-cloud. https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/
- bayesianbot 3y agoYou can use git with it. It automatically commits at configurable intervals, and with few hooks[0] you can make pushing automatic and also pull changes made elsewhere (which then get instantly shown on a running Logseq desktop instance). The default git configuration was kinda weird, but I think I initialized the git myself and then added it in Logseq before adding the hooks and it's been good experience. [0] https://github.com/CharlesChiuGit/Logseq-Git-Sync-101 https://github.com/CharlesChiuGit/Logseq-Git-Sync-101
- INGSOCIALITE 3y agowith obsidian and IOS - you start a vault on your iphone it creates a vault in your icloud folder - then open the desktop client and open the vault from the icloud folder. perfect sync without subscription or git
- burrish 3y agoI keep hearing about loqseq, is there anyone using it here that can give me their opinion on it?
- nerdponx 3y agoI use it casually. I really like it, except for the fact that the UI shows empty log days. So if I don't take any note for a week, I get a big blank scroll, instead of whatever my last note was. Structuring everything into "nodes" is a paradigm that works well for me.
- rbetts 3y agoI use it daily for work. The core concept is a single time-sequential outline. Each entry in the outline is referenceable and can be included by reference in other pages. Pages are created wiki-style. Entries can have additional metadata. There is a “todo” system of metadata (that I don’t use.). There is a data log query capability. All content is markdown. The editor inlines images. Outline + markdown + inline images + wiki-ish system is a sweet spot for me.
- rbetts 3y agoReindexing will eliminate empty pages, fwiw.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoFeatures are a bit better than Obsidian at the cost of much more jank.
- encody 3y agoI use it and mostly like it. It is excellent at being a WYSIWYG, markdown-first, stream-of-consciousness, note-taking application. The plugin ecosystem is sparse/immature, and the special features like PDF embedding/annotating are not very usable. It is difficult to set up sync properly (I self host Nextcloud and usually have to resolve sync conflicts whenever I switch devices). There is an Android app, which works fine, but the integration with the Android system (e.g. creating a note from a "Share" dialog) is... obtuse.
- aliasxneo 3y agoUsed both for awhile, and I much prefer Logseq. Haven't missed unstructured text since moving over like I thought I would.
- asystole 3y agoLogseq is nice but to call it an Obsidian alternative is a stretch to the point that I'd call it straight up incorrect.
- aragonite 3y agoLogseq started out as a RoamResearch alternative. Speaking of which, I wonder whatever happened to that project. One nice thing about Roam is that because it doesn't use files, it has true transclusion, both at the level of documents and at the level of individual symbols (tags & links). Because of this, renaming a tag globally for example is trivially easy. (I don't think global tag renaming is possible in Obsidian natively (without plugin) yet.)
- PurpleRamen 3y ago> I don't think global tag renaming is possible in Obsidian natively (without plugin) yet. It's not tags, but this update brought global renaming of properties out-of-the-box. Properties are the data-fields in frontmatter, the yaml-part which acts as a header in Obsidian-files. Being yaml, makes this rather easy and safe to implement. Tags on the side can occur in freetext, which makes it easy to have false-tags found. Putting some automatism on this is a bit risky I guess.
- aragonite 3y ago> Tags on the side can occur in freetext, which makes it easy to have false-tags found. Putting some automatism on this is a bit risky I guess I agree, especially if you copy paste tweets containing hashtags into your files you could end up with accident collisions. On the other hand, I refactor my tags a lot so I really needed the feature. I ended up using a simple VSCode language server to piggyback on "rename symbols". It's not ideal but it reduced a lot of friction.
- esjeon 3y agoYup, Logseq is simply too different. It basically wants to go farther than what Obsidian aims to achieve. That said, some features of Logseq are janky, as they are not refined enough. I think Obsidian hit the sweat spot that is easy to implement yet offers enough features.
- cl42 3y agoOut of curiosity, why do you prefer open source in this case?
- jddj 3y agoNot OP but for me it's to avoid the following playing out: 1. gradually, more vendor lockin (read: not plain markdown) features are added 2. greater focus on monetization 3. exit 4. go to #2. In some products this doesn't matter. In a personal knowledgebase it might.
- cl42 3y agoI appreciate that, thanks for sharing! If Obsidian didn't have plain markdown + regular folders, I would also avoid it.
- 0thgen 3y agoI guess though with Obsidian, even if you get locked out or they dry up tomorrow, you don’t lose anything in your knowledge base because it works on top of your existing directory structure The only thing you could get locked out of is the convenient curation that Obsidian provides Im normally opensource-or-bust but the way obsidian is set up is pretty low risk
- jddj 3y agoThat's true today, I agree. Having watched this movie a few times, I like to have the insurance policy of open source licensing so that it stays true tomorrow. Once something is proprietary it's arguably easier from a developer perspective - and preferred from an investor perspective - to make it steadily more proprietary over time. Then one day you wake up and even if your notes still aren't saved in some some obtuse format that only loads properly in Obsidian, your experience has gradually degraded but by this stage you've got so much tied up in the proprietary extras that you stick around unhappily.
- qup 3y ago
- brightball 3y agoIt’s not open source but it doesn’t have to be because all of your documents are in portable, well organized markdown. You can easily jump to any other tool that reads markdown thanks to that. Open source would better, but I’m more concerned with avoiding lock in.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoAFAIK it's still a flavor of markdown, with some modifications and extensions. Which is pretty common in markdown-land, but could prevent easy adaption of another markdown-tool, depending on what syntax you use heavily.
- cube2222 3y agoSwitched back-and-forth as well, and ended up with Logseq long term. In practice, logseq’s block-oriented system works really good for the daily journal, and with obsidian I always devolved to just prepending points to a single file anyway.
- subtra3t 3y agoCan anybody comment on Logseq's performance compared to Obsidian? Obsidian is perfect for my needs but unfortunately a tad too heavy for my poor laptop with 4 GB RAM.
- malnourish 3y agoLogseq has worse performance, undoubtedly, and the performance penalty scales proportionally to the size of your knowledge graph. I only notice poor performance if I'm trying to modify a large embedded block. Otherwise, it's typically fine. That said, I actually _use_ Logseq due to the way it works (i.e., an outliner). Obsidian simply doesn't meet my needs.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoLogseq to me is more what Obsidian was supposed to be but I realize not everyone wants an outliner
- subtra3t 3y agoThanks! Would you by any chance know of a light weight note taking app?
- Scarbutt 3y agoEmacs org-mode.
- peatmoss 3y agoLightweight in terms of system resources, yes. Lightweight in terms of "I have a whole new lifestyle and religion"... no. Org-mode can be used simply, but the kind of person drawn to org-mode (e.g. me) has a hard time not yak shaving org-mode in the extreme. :-)
- rubymamis 3y agoShameless plug: my note-taking app[1] is built using Qt C++ and QML. I’m also working on a new note taking app with a revamped block editor[2]. [1] https://www.get-notes.com/ https://www.get-notes.com/ [2] https://www.get-plume.com/ https://www.get-plume.com/
- hresvelgr 3y agoAnother Obsidian alternative which I use every day is Anytype[1]. It's fully open source however under their own license which has some interesting terms to discourage commercial adoption. They seem to be very focused on individual use. The user experience is similar to Notion with some subtle differences, but overall very positive. The biggest plus for me was offline p2p sync and a really solid mobile app. [1] https://anytype.io/ https://anytype.io/
- ethanbond 3y agoI really, really want to like Anytype (longtime Obsidian user). I just cannot get through the general cludginess of it. “Similar to Notion” is exactly right, unfortunately. The attempted switch to Anytype revealed to me how important it is that Obsidian feels like opening up a terminal or simple text editor.
- espdev 3y ago> The user experience is similar to Notion Honestly, it sounds like a judgment call because Notion is truly a monstrous thing. It slows down terribly and it's just plain uncomfortable. Why does "everyone" love Notion? It's horrible, how can you even use it? Programs that do simple things should be simple and run fast. It's like a pencil that you simply use and don't think about how to use it, you don't notice it at all.
- tamimio 3y ago>everyone loves notion I don’t, I actually loathe it.
- PurpleRamen 3y ago> It slows down terribly and it's just plain uncomfortable. When was the last time you use it, and what's in your workspace? Notion did receive some improvements on performance over the years, but it still depends strong on which data you dump into your workspace. > Why does "everyone" love Notion? Because it's an awesome concept with a well-rounded implementation on the user side. It just sucks hard on the technical side. I mean, it's a good tool, but it has an upper ceiling of what one should do with it. But this is a general problem with all those young fancy tools. Obsidian or Logseq are not different in that regard. They all are scaling poor. They are simply not meant for this. > Programs that do simple things should be simple and run fast. It's not simple, it's very far from being simple.
- Brajeshwar 3y agoI did try Logseg, but here is my reasoning for choosing Obsidian over it. Logseg is smart and tries to manage the content for me, but I need to know where my content is. I was pleased with Sublime Text tamed to play nicely when encountering MarkDown. But Obsidian came along and changed that. I still avoid Obsidian plugins that take over my content.
- brunoqc 3y agoLogseq is open core if their sync feature is not open.
- awill 3y agoAgreed. It's frustrating because both Obsidian and Logseq have deliberately removed a crucial feature. So people either have to pay a lot, or do janky workarounds to do their own sync. Why have so many people waste their time with own custom solution.
- PurpleRamen 3y agoThey have developers to feed, and sync is a fair choice for paywalling a feature.
- brunoqc 3y agoI guess, but without a good native sync, there's no way that less tech-savvy people will use it. Personally, I wouldn't mind paying a small fee for a great note-taking app, but I would like to be able to share some notes with my mom and with my partner. But they wouldn't want to pay for it, as they wouldn't use the app as much.
- unixhero 3y agoI would mind. This subscription based reality has got to end. I'm drawing a line in the sand.
- awill 3y agoOf course. But they should make their money in other ways. A note taking app that I can't sync across multiple devices is useless. And you can't try the full version with sync to see if it would work. All I'm saying is they're leaving a lot of money on the table. I hear syncthing is good for this, but obviously it's messier on iOS. I just know that $8/mo for sync is too much. You can get Office 365, or Google Drive/Dropbox with a TON of space for that price, and that space is usable by lots of different things.
- FireInsight 3y agoI love Logseq, would even more if the performance wasn't so bad on my phone. It doesn't feel like an Obsidian alternative, though. I mostly use it for journaling.
- Al-Khwarizmi 3y agoI use Joplin as open-source notes app. Haven't really tried Logseq or much of Obsidian, though, as seriously trying a notes app takes some commitment. Joplin is just the first one I tried that fit my needs after fleeing from Evernote, and I'm happy with it, but maybe I'm missing hepful features from elsewhere. It would be helpful if anyone who has tried several could give a comparison.
- espdev 3y agoJoplin uses SQLite DB to store data, not markdown files. Moreover, you can't even change the directory where this database is stored, which is pretty funny for an open source application. Also, there are no internal linking and knowledge graphs in there. Also, there are UI/UX issues, for example annoying modal windows about updates can pop up at inopportune moments. But it should be noted that web clipper is quite usable. But it is not rocket science to make a web clipper. Obsidian is an app of a higher level of quality and usability.
- kelsolaar 3y agoMarkdown is a blessing for any operation that needs to be performed across many files. Load up your favorite editor and get going.
- repple 3y agoI used Joplin for a few years and loved it. I quit evernote as soon as it lost all of my notes years ago. Switched to Obsidian for faster startup time, which is at the top of my feature list for such apps. Joplin got worse over time with more notes. I considered Roam and Notion, but having to pay AND slow startup made no sense, although Notion features are quite nice. Now thinking about adding Logseq to work with my Obsidian. I also think DEVONthink is great closed source app for research especially where you can index and search all of your PDF collection and it will give you closest matching files and content with respect to your current file. Many other great features. But it’s Mac/iOS-only app, lacks of linux/windows support. Startup time is very slow. And UX for note taking is kind of unpleasant to work with. I really want to use it but I can’t for all of these reasons. It’s like an expensive car which you own but never want to drive.
- heresie-dabord 3y ago> For an opensource alternative to Obsidian I would say bash, git/git daemon, grep, python http server as needed. No closed-source application between me and my information.
- D13Fd 3y agoIt all depends on what skills you already have with those tools and how much you value your time.
- unixhero 3y agoWhat is the best then? Logseq or Obsidian? Goal 1: World class note taking Goal 2: Not get captured by a corporation, such as what happened to Endnote Logseq has a more convincing website.