Comment by ddsea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ddsea | Hacker News Reader

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I felt that Evernote was becoming increasingly constraining and slow/flaky, so after trying a few alternatives (text files/dirs, SimpleNote, Apple Notes, BoostNotes, Zim, etc), I've made a leap of faith to Joplin.

My requirements: multi-platform, multi-device, auto-sync (more than 2 devices in free ver.), tags, webclip-ability, preferably markdown format with code rendering. Text diagramming such as PlantUML is a big plus. The idea of owning my notes is very appealing.

My early attempts at synchronizing encrypted notes over OneDrive experienced repeated hiccups (stopped syncing for no apparent reason), so currently trying without encryption. Win10 and Android clients seem to chug along just fine, but the Linux client shows weird errors in the log - trying to hunt down the root cause.

The fact that Joplin is WIP and open source is encouraging. I'd like to be able to have separate DBs, e.g. for personal and business use.

ADDED: forgot to mention that the lack of dark mode on Windows EN client was a constant source of irritation.

It sounds like what you're looking for is Notion. It checks most of your boxes, I believe.

I just switched from Notion (and Evernote, Google Keep) to Joplin, and currently I'm quite satisfied with its offering.

Some cons I felt while using Notion: - Mandatory to log in using a Google account is a _very_ big pushback for me - I need it to work all the time offline. - E2EE encryption? I don't think it's there. It's something I strongly desire for privacy reason. - It's a freemium subscription modal, I have nothing against it, but imho, completely free one is of course better - It's not open sourced, but Joplin is.

Take a look at Standard Notes. It can be self hosted and has E2EE. It's not quite a replacement for some features but there is a web clipping add-on in development.

Note that it is paid, the company has a longevity statement around that.

Thanks for the suggestion. At this point I'd rather avoid mandatory monthly payments in favor of voluntary donations to FOSS.

I can second Notion! I've switched over from Notability + Google Keep + an overstuffed bookmark folder, and it's been working great to keep my notes/projects/shopping lists together.

I just wish they had an API that I could use.

changing between accounts is a PITA though

More on color schemes: in addition to Joplin including a few built-in themes, the appearance of rendered pages can be adjusted via CSS. Playing with it felt more liberating for me than I care to admit.

I use Zim for work use. I find I don't actually need a mobile app since I don't really need to take anything more than temporary notes on my phone.

The nice thing is it uses 17mb ram so I can leave it running all the time which is a helpful thing since all the other electron apps keep my laptop at 18gb memory usage

Same thing here, zim + seafile for the sync. Couldn't be happier

Sadly my experience with the Android app has been less than inpressive, with a memory leak related to React that has yet to be patched, and slows down the keyboard system-wide.

Could you provide a link to the memory leak bug report? I’d like to know more and cannot find one that isn’t closed or doesn’t affect a small subset of devices under particular conditions.

did you test Google Keep?

I use it all the time - it's great but mostly for lists such as TODO, etc. - it is very convenient for syncing across devices where I login with my G. account. My notes are usually longer articles, often with images, tables, diagrams, code snippets, etc.

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