Selfhosted @lemmy.world gedaliyah @lemmy.world 3w ago

FOSS alternative to Google Keep

Yes, I know that the are dozens of notes apps. I'm looking for recommendations based on a few features that I like:

nice design (including color coding)
easy checklists
sharing - this one is key. I use a shared shopping list and we both need to add and edit.
pinning and archiving (hidden notes)

I don't mind running it from my homelab server, but that is not a requirement. Does anyone use a notes app that you love? Let me know!

84 comments

For note apps I can recommend:

Joplin

Licensed under: AGPL-3.0

Notally

Licensed under: GPL-3.0
- sharing - this one is key. I use a shared shopping list and we both need to add and edit.
  
  i use and love notally but you can't share/sync (export/import wouldn't satisfy the above requirement)
- I was using Joplin for a while... Self hosted their server. On two occasions it screwed up on me and wouldn't load my folders... Luckily I had backups but it was still frustrating. I don't recommend them purely because the notes are stored in a custom format instead of just plain text files.
  
  My favorite way of doing notes now is with git, currently using a free private repo on gitlab.
  
  Just clone the repo on whatever PC I need them and it has backups and version control.
  
  Then use GitJournal on my phone.
  
  It's perfect for me. I love it.
  
  Nice, I’ve been doing something similar, using the obsidian-git plug-in for Obsidian and the Working Copy app on iOS.
  
  Obsidian is my front-end, and it saves the notes in markdown files in a git-synced folder on my computer.
  
  The plug-in pushes and pulls automatically, and Working Copy does the same thing on iOS, just before opening the Obsidian app on iOS.
  
  I had similar experiences with Joplin. Would randomly lose quite a lot of data, and exporting to other formats was a hassle. I also cannot recommend.
- I also found a fork called NotallyX, which includes import functions from Keep and Evernote. Pretty useful for someone migrating.
  
  amount of backups to keep
  
  also is a nice addition but i like the fact that notally is just 1.9mb. So i keep using notally and delete a dozen backups from time to time :/
- Why does Notally not have an Issue tracker?
  
  Seems pretty much exactly like Nextcloud Notes but without sync and with image/audio. Wish the images could be inline instead of headers.
if you're comparing note apps and don't want to try them all one by one like i did, somebody apparently tried them all and wrote reviews ☞https://www.noteapps.ca
https://tinylist.app
- Upvotes because the devs are good. Sharing does not work well if at all though.
- This is a very cool project! With a few minor developments this could meet my needs
I just use NextCloud Notes. Categories are just sub folders, so you can create a Shared category and just share it in Nextcloud.
- I wish the web interface let you sort the sub categories both ways. I have a series of subcategories of Year/month that I'm using as a journal and the longer I keep writing, the further have to scroll down :/
Obsidian is amazing, though it isn't FOSS but your notes are saved in Markdown, so even if something happens with the app, they will remain yours.

Another alternative may be Joplin and AnyType, but I think AnyType is also not 100% FOSS.
- Logseq
Results from me asking this 1Y ago: https://lemm.ee/post/4593760

Went with Joplin and using it since.

Results from the same question 1 month ago: https://lemm.ee/post/45943693
- Thank you! This is very helpful. I didn't see these but Lemmy search is sort of broken for me right now.
https://github.com/usememos/memos

This has all of that.
- Wow, this looks amazing. I'll have to check it out to see how sharing/collaboration works though.
  
  They make an account on your hosted service. Notes can be set private or public or workspace.
  
  https://demo.usememos.com/
  
  Log in with the default there.
I'm using Quillpad
- This is the best answer and should be much higher. It's the closest thing to Google Keep with the features OP wants.
- Does this reorganize the task list when checked or treat it as vanilla mark down?
  
  It puts completed items at the bottom of the list, if I understand what you're asking
Fossify Notes is quiet good for note taking and quick check-lists.
- No sync or share though, right?
  
  No, you can export/import the notes as files but you'll need a cloud client to sync them
Nextcloud Notes?

I was skeptical at first but have found it the most useable of all the ones I tried out.
I use standard notes.
- What benefits do you find in particular that make it better than hosting yourself?
  
  I believe you can host your data if you prefer
Joplin + Syncthing has been great for me. Sync across multiple devices with no third party in between. However the "sharing" in this context is limited to other installations of the entire db. To my knowledge, there's no way to say "sync these notes with my wife, and these others with my phone only" etc.
- Last i looked into it, joplin had a bug which ment syncthing didnt work . Can't remember the details but the solution was pinning an old version.
  
  I am much much happier with markor notes + syncthing.
  
  Super sinple, 100 % foss, sync what you want .
  
  I guess it's been a while then. Syncthing works perfectly for me, with the official latest version in Arch, the older version in Debian, the flatpak on Ubuntu, and the forked version on Android, syncing all my Joplin data all over the place.
  
  I don't much care for the file format though. The appeal of Git Journal is strong.
@gedaliyah i use the tasks.org one

https://github.com/tasks/tasks
- Wait, you use Tasks as Notes? I use this app for tasks and the Nextcloud Notes app for notes. Do you just make a task with no due date?
  
  @fmstrat i use tasks for the parts of keep that involve tasks/lists, i suppose. I do use Notes for actual notes though.
  
  So yeah, not a direct replacement of course.
Orgzly
- This
Vikunja seems to check all your boxes
- Vikunja is great and I use it but I really wish that the search also searched the contents of a to do. I put massive amounts of notes on my todos.
"I WANT ALL THE CLOUD THINGS RIGHT NOW FOR FREE AND I REFUSE TO COMPROMISE 🦶🦶🦶🦶"

That's what these requests read like.

Look, these people have a product with a good UI and sharing for a reason. Anything else you find that doesn't hit that mark is because of that. Make concessions for what you really need, build your own, or continue stomping around about it.
- They're just asking for recommendations, calm down...
- Yell louder while providing nothing useful to say.
  
  Things exist. Things you may not know about.
  
  Questions exist.
  
  They are used to ask questions.
  
  There's only one person stomping around in this post. It isn't OP.
- I pay for all of the software that I use, and encourage others to do so as well. That's not what this is at all. Pretty much the opposite effect.
  
  I paid for Evernote for years, got a double helping of enshitification.
  
  I pay for Google Workspace. They will Play eventually sunset keep even though I pay for their services because that's just what they do.
  
  If you don't host it yourself, they can and will take it away from you.
  
  Don't worry, that guy wins most useless comment. You're post was great.
  
  And yet you are not OP
- Or, you know, they could keep using Google Keep.
  
  There's a corner of the FOSS community that is all like "you should jump ship on literally any software that is not clean and pure of corporate interests" but also "can't blame FOSS software for not being good unless you're in the process of making your own". It's... kinda confusing.
You might like Blinko. It seems similar to Keep to me. I set it up for awhile, but it didn't give me anything beyond what I already have with Joplin, so couldn't justify keeping it or transitioning to it. Here's a video from DB Tech on the set up process: Self-host Blinko with docker
- Wow, this has some neat features and it looks great on any size screen. I will be following this for sure
  
  Development is pretty rapid too. I didn't track the features on the updates, but new versions were getting pushed regularly. No mobile app which was kind of a bummer, but the progressive web app integration was pretty good. It felt like a mobile app.
  
  Edit: I forgot to mention the note sharing function, it shares a URL of the note that allows the recipient to view and edit the note through the URL. It was a little janky when compared with sharing a note between two users using themselves app, but it still worked pretty decently.
Anyone know of any that integrate with Google assistant? Such that I can use my voice to add items to a list? Currently using keep due to this
- Oh, that is a really interesting question. I do think that there are some open source assistants that may offer some flexibility, but that's not really how I personally use a phone so I wouldn't have any answer. I found this article from a few years ago that seems to suggest it was and may be possible.
OrgNote
- This feels a lot like Nextcloud Notes but the editor seems a bit clunky (like the web editor).
  
  It's much more powerful though. Based on Org-Mode.
planka
Carnet on Nextcloud is currently the "closest" I've found but it needs a ton of TLC. Sharing notes currently only works on the dev build. I keep telling myself I'll fix it but can't find the time. If anyone wants some open source contributions the maintainer has asked for help
I’m happy with standard notes. Very easy to use and you don’t need to sync files across devices yourself. I’m not sure if it’s possible to share the notes tho.
Markor is absolutely amazing. Pair it with syncthing.

Find it will mentained on play, froid and github https://github.com/gsantner/markor
- Syncthing is discontinued this month. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002
  
  Well. I have used https://github.com/Catfriend1/syncthing-android for ages... Guess that will continue?
  
  That is not good news at all!

84 comments