Logseq – privacy-first, open-source knowledge sharing and management platform | Hacker News Reader

Logseq – privacy-first, open-source knowledge sharing and management platform

github.com

209 pointssimonpure40 comments

Author here, thanks for the posting! I've been working it since February, it started as an org-mode web outliner so that I can use it on my phone to check some todos and capture some ideas.

I added some features (backlinks, graph, block embeds, etc.) from Roam Research after trying it. It can be self-hosted and the plan is to have something like TiddlyWiki so that you can use it as a whole HTML file in your own website. The documentation is a read-only version of logseq itself and it's hosted on GitHub pages.

The org mode parser is open sourced too, https://github.com/mldoc/mldoc, most features are already supported, we're working on something like org agenda and org-roam integrations.

Documentation example: https://logseq.github.io/. Any questions or feedback will be appreciated, thank you!

We also have a discord group for logseq, free free to say hi! https://discord.gg/KpN4eHY

I was just about to begin working on something similar, now I'll wait and see how this project goes!

Since I don't like my notes unencrypted in the cloud somewhere with a company deciding whether I may access them or not, I'm going to wait for a 100% self-hosted version.

> I was just about to begin working on something similar, now I'll wait and see how this project goes! Thanks and sorry about that! > Since I don't like my notes unencrypted in the cloud somewhere with a company deciding whether I may access them or not, I'm going to wait for a 100% self-hosted version. Totally make sense to me! we'll make it to be used without login with a self-hosted git server.

How does this compare to Obsidian?

Logseq supports both block and page embeds, it has datalog queries and task management from org mode. Another difference is that Obsidian is a desktop app and Logseq is a web app which can be used on mobile too.

I find Obsidian's licensing to be overly expensive if you intend to use it for anything that will generate income.

A bit ironic that you can only login using GitHub and the story today was “Never Use Third Party Auth to Sign In”[1].

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25091420

This is a really silly criticism of this particular application, given (1) this application's functionality depends on integration with a github account, and (2) that third party auth sign ins is a very common feature, so nothing application specific here.

Glad to see open-source tools like this starting up. Have you had a chance to look at Athens [1] to compare? They seem to be using similar tooling.

[1] https://github.com/athensresearch/athens

Thanks for the question! Yes, both Logseq and Athens are working on open source knowledge base tool, and both are using clojure/clojurescript and datascript. Some differences are: 1. logseq works directly with plaintext files (it support both org mode and markdown for the record, we plan to add more markup formats like asciidoc in the future). 2. logseq can be used on the web and can be synced using Git. 3. logseq draws a lot of ideas from org mode, tiddlywiki instead of only Roam Research.

Athens is working on a desktop app (which we'll start building soon). It's always great to have multiple implementations so that we can learn from each other.

In Roam there are only Page and Block. What is the role of a File in the Logseq data model? Is it a third object type? How does it relate to the other two?

I like knowledge apps that use external storage like GitHub because you have control of your data without sacrificing the convenience of the cloud.

I did the same thing for my knowledge sharing app: https://verynested.cadell.dev/

I use it to share my recipes; https://cooking.cadell.dev/

As an org-mode user, I was searching for a way to access my notes outside emacs, in browser and phone. There are a few solutions that can manage org files outside emacs, but none of them goes beyond basic functionalities. I find logseq promising. I think there is already an effort to make it compatible with org-roam. It would be awesome if they support citation packages like org-roam-bibtex and org-ref as well, in future. I would like to hear the author's opinion on this, if they are reading this comment.

You might be interested in this :) https://twitter.com/logseq/status/1324629634382589954

I created a new repo to try this out the other night and haven't opened emacs since (I work in a windows environment so I just use week emacs for personal org mode based stuff now, plus any mundane editing on my Linux workstation).

I love that I CAN go back any time and could just clone the repo to get into some heavy lifting with org-agenda or whatever. But so far, no need.

Frankly, I'm blown away with logseq. I tried Roam Research when I discovered it, dropped it because of the fact that I like to maintain my own data (and the price, frankly), but missed it. This just checks every box for me.

I am a happy Logseq user since summer. I use it as personal and work related knowledge base. It has been developping quickly. I really appreciate publishing features and github sync. I'm self hosting knowledge graphs for my team and despite some early hiccups it's working really well and intuitive. Glad to see it on hn as well.

Thanks!

I've been searching for something like this for a while! Can't wait to try it out! Also, interesting choice of technologies. Good luck and thanks for open sourcing this app.

Thank you!

If you're looking for a mobile client to go along with this checkout GitJournal [0]. It has basic support for wiki style links and backlinks, but I'm still working on the graph support.

[0] - https://gitjournal.io

If anyone's looking for a mobile notes app that syncs with git, I highly encourage checking out GitJournal. I used it for a bit before building a personal app specific to my workflow.

Are you still bundling libgit? I remember checking this project out and was impressed you got the setup to work with flutter. It's actually a reason I switched to react native because there were pure JS git implementations [0].

[0] https://github.com/isomorphic-git/isomorphic-git¡

Logseq is impossible without isomorphic-git, such a great project!

Yup. I'm still bundling libgit2, it took a lot of effort to get it to work.

I've been working on dart-git https://github.com/GitJournal/dart-git and it's been slowly replacing most of libgit2. Eventually I would like to remove libgit2 completely and only have libssh2.

I would love to know more about your workflow.

Seems like a nice idea but it's very expensive for the feature set, Pro is on the same price level as OmniFocus but can do far less... It also misses outlining support, which logseq has.

(Tried it out on iOS out of interest anyway and it failed to even clone my repo, as it's on a local network, iOS asked for local network access permissions and then it got confused saying "Exception: fatal: remote "origin" already exists")

Sorry. I've been refactoring the code for multi-repo and multi-remote handling and I introduced a bug in the process.

If you can clear all the app's data and try again it should work. I've fixed the bug, but I still have to publish the fix on iOS.

Why not just use Joplin [1]... that use tags and folders, can rsync almost anywhere, and can be encrypted at rest?

[1]: https://joplinapp.org

For two main reasons -

1. Git support - Having the history of all your changes is wonderful. I never have to worry about a note being accidentally deleted. It's also great for collaboration.

2. Mobile App - Joplin's mobile app really leaves a lot to be desired and is lacking a lot of essential features. Eg - Browsing your notes in a grid view similar to Google Keep, or linking your notes together using the wiki link format.

I have been keeping an eye on this project for some time now. Happy to see it getting open-sourced. I am curious if I can directly start using it with my org-roam repo from GitHub or if that's not possible yet.

Thank you for your continued attention! There's some links issue (org id) which we'll address soon. We'll try our best to make logseq work smoothly with org-roam.

Why does this say it needs github? Can it not use any git repository?

Looks like it used GitHub for SSO and likely specific APIs.

The plan is to add self-host git support later.

I like the idea of the project, but this is a blocker for me.

Thanks for the work you do, and for open sourcing!

Glad to see and test logseq that compares favourably with other outliners including Checkvist.com that I've been using for 10 years.

Thank you for your feedback and suggestions in the logseq discord group, looking forward to learn more ideas from other outliners!

Yay! Happy to share this with more people! Let us know if you have any questions or feedback :)

Loqseq page mentions both org-mode and RoamResearh as an inspiration but not org-roam. :C

Maybe the author didn't know it? Totally in the realm of possible scenarios.

The reason is that I only knew org-roam 3 or 4 months ago, logseq supports org mode at the beginning (since February) and several months later I added some features from roam and TiddlyWiki. That said, we're trying our best to make logseq works together with org-roam.

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