Taking Notes with Joplin | Hacker News Reader

Taking Notes with Joplin

lwn.net

108 pointssohkamyung63 comments

Joplin is really nice feature-wise but the last time I looked at it a few years back I absolutely HATED the way that it structured your notes.

The way it worked was that they stored new/existing notes in an SQLite table with UUIDs. This of course makes it very difficult to use bash tools, other IDEs, etc. to work with your notes after Joplin has ingested them.

Further the related media was renamed "UUID.<related extension>" which were stored in `~/.config/joplin-desktop/resources`.

Compare this to apps like VS Code / Obsidian / Logseq (also open source) which don't mess with your markdown file organization. You can just point them to a root folder and they'll work natively with your markdown files. No syncing required.

Basically Joplin is an Evernote replacement. If you were a fan of Evernote, you like how it is structured, if you weren't, you probably don't.

I'm with you 100%. I wish there was an OSS tool that was like Obsidian and cross-platform (no cloud hosting required). Logseq is the closest but the markdown standard isn't fully supported, and they add a lot of custom syntax/metadata.

You said “like Obsidian”. Which parts of Obsidian are most important for you

- Apps for, at least, windows and android.

- Storage of files in a folder that can be seen by the OS to allow sync by something like syncthing

- Moderately good UI (nice to have: live preview of markdown)

- Core features not behind a paywall (e.g. siyuan can't sync, notenook missing important features)

- Nice to have: push notifications for tasks/reminders

I keep thinking about how much feature lists like this could be matched by the Finder/File Explorer and my favorite text editor.

Yes of course but not on android. Also I'd prefer the same app/experience across platforms.

Also Logseq is moving towards some sort of "database storage", which I think entails moving away from plain text files.

> Obsidian

Probably not what you're looking for, but I'm having a wonderful time running a private instance of Mediawiki. It's only accessible to me in my lan (or through my vpn). It's been my private digital garden for a few years now and i like it very much.

The only thing I truly miss is the possibility of pointing a Wikipedia-like app (might as well be the same codebase of the official wikipedia app, but pointing at my private endpoint).

I'm not sure it has all the features Obsidian has (I haven't tried Obsidian) but it has a fairly large number of extensions: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:All_extensions

I really think you’re trying to use the wrong tool for the job here. Joplin isn’t designed for your notes to be modified outside of the ecosystem, the notes themselves are markdown so you can export or transfer them, but you can’t simultaneously edit them outside of Joplin. For that you’re better off with a folder of markdown files which you can push to Git.

Joplin is essentially an open source version of Evernote and a great alternative for people who enjoyed that style of application.

> Joplin isn’t designed for your notes to be modified outside of the ecosystem, the notes themselves are markdown so you can export or transfer them, but you can’t simultaneously edit them outside of Joplin.

Well, except for https://joplinapp.org/help/apps/external_text_editor/

With that feature the external editor is launched via Joplin, so the editing is still happening in the ecosystem. You can’t just open the notes from outside Joplin.

True, good point.

> The way it worked was that they stored new/existing notes in an SQLite table with UUIDs. This of course makes it very difficult to use bash tools, other IDEs, etc. to work with your notes after Joplin has ingested them.

This is the real deal breaker for me for evaluating any note-taking tool.

If the Obsidian app dies tomorrow, my notes will be fine.

If Joplin gets abandoned, then I will have to deal with all the imports/exports into a new tool.

Bash tools are really powerful.

One can even take a git (not just GitHub) backup of one's Obsidian notes easily.

With binary files like SQLite, the git backups work, but they don't provide a meaningful diff.

Joplin can export all of your notes as markdown right now using the export feature. It is not how Joplin works with it internally, but if it did shut down tomorrow, all of your notes can still be exported as plain text markdown into another editor, such as Obsidian.

I'm really surprised I don't see more tech-savvy people talking about SilverBullet (https://silverbullet.md). It's not perfect, but very "hackable" and being actively developed. It's the best self-hostable note taking app I've found so far.

As i understand it, it has no encryption build in. Maybe thats the reason.

I did not know it and so I had a look. While it looks promising, it does not have a install section on how to set it up as a systemd service, just docker...

That makes it a hard pass for me.

I was using this for a while and really loving it, however the dev just recently decided to undertake a rewrite into Lua which breaks all existing scripts, and changed how the online/offline paradigm works, which made me feel a bit skittish about whether it is going to be a stable long-term solution. I am really rooting for Zef here though and hope it settles into a good place soon!

I like SilverBullet a lot; it's similar in philosophy to Obsidian. The biggest issue I had using it as a daily driver is that it's a website; there's no dedicated app. I like to have Obsidian hotkeyed as a toggle on cmd-' for instant access. As a Firefox user on macOS, I couldn't figure out a way to do that with SilverBullet, even with HammerSpoon scripting.

I just found out about SilverBullet and it looks promising, but I'm also worried about the lack of a dedicated app for the same reason as you. The developer mentions installing it as a WPA in the demo video, have you tried that? Seems like it could solve the shortcut problem.

If SilverBullet were into acquiring more users (they may not be), they could use some major help with their site design.

When I visit the SilverBullet link, I get a wall of text. And at the very top is a warning about versions and a link to migrating your data between versions, which leads to another extensive wall of text with various code and configuration examples.

Many people, even busy tech savvy people, are going to shy away from this.

To be honest, it looks kind of interesting to my inner nerd, but I think I'll stick with my "directory of plaintext Markdown files" that I've moved between apps as they've come and gone.

I have used Joplin daily for years. The only thing I _REALLY_ wish they did was allow you to just store and display notes as plain text.

Instead, there is always either markdown or rich text formatting involved. And there's no ability to disable that.

That always seemed odd to me to force that kind of decision on users.

I suppose you can enclose whole notes in a code block (```)

I don’t understand… occasionally I use markdown and switch to the viewer mode to see it rendered, but most of the time I stay in the editor mode where everything is just plain text.

I do that. And it's not bad. But it still doesn't treat the input/interface strictly as plain text.

I can't remember all the little things that happen, which wouldn't happen in a plain text editor, but if you type hyphen-space, then hit enter, the line is deleted and your cursor stays on that line instead of advancing to the next.

It's a trivial example, but things like that happen.

OK, I can reproduce that on the iOS Joplin app, but not on the desktop app. Weird.

Using Joplin right now. I wouldn't say I'm blown away by it, but it fits some simple needs for a digital notebook:

* Markdown and LaTeX working stably out of the box. * Side-by-side view. * (Isolated) File and folder browser in the immediate UI

I originally started with it because it's Open Source and can link to other documents saved in Joplin - I don't actually use that feature though.

Other than that it's fairly sane. Just works, no real bugs so far, and you can export in a variety of different convenient formats; I've come to trust exporting as a single .jex (Joplin Export) file, but MD and HTML are supported.

Since Evernote died, I've been looking for a thing to replace it with. I've tried dozens (not exaggregating) note-taking solution.

Right now I've reverted to the good (?) old "plain markdown files in a git-synced repository. Of course it comes with its own set of downsides, but after migrating (and sometimes leaving behind) my notes so many times I like how portable and universal plain-text is.

(I want to give a shout-out to Tiddlywiki. It stands out among the plethora of solutions I've tested, and I still sometimes use it for my mind-maps or designs).

What do you mean by "Evernote died"? To the best of my knowledge they are still up and running?

Probably even released some new ToS to scrape all user data for AI training, I imagine.

I'm sure the parent means Evernote has suffered from enshitification and monetary optimization. The Evernote you get today is not the same as the Evernote from 15 years ago.

I don't know if you've tried Obsidian, but it's just a tool that sits atop your pile 'o Markdown files. No vendor lock-in or special databases. I use Syncthing to sync the files between devices and git to periodically back them up to a private repo.

I've had to be careful to steer clear of all the plugin nonsense that's tempting to dive into as a distraction from actually using the tool, but Obsidian is surprisingly awesome right out of the box.

I use the daily note template tool to generate a structured agenda for each day, which removes the friction that used to keep me from daily journaling and second brain stuff. Now I can't live without it. It's been life-changing for me, as a person previously crippled with ADHD and perpetually living in a state of intense anxiety.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to help out. I was also an Evernote (and Joplin, and...) user for years and was never satisfied until I made a list of my requirements and discovered that Obsidian ticks all the boxes. Haven't turned back since.

You can go crazy with the plugins for sure, but I found three to be particularly useful:

1. Google Calendar - this is a pain to set up, but once it's set up you can pull your agenda into a note.

2. Tasks - This allows you to write a query which you can use to consolidate multiple TODO lists into a single note.

3. Homepage - Always keep one note open as a pinned home page.

Combine the 3 and I have a nice dashboard that shows my agenda for the day and all the various TODOs I have peppered through my vault.

I switched to amplenote, which im very happy with. And i tried all the other notetaking apps, from jopling (hate the lack of wysiwyg editor) over obsidian and all the rest. Amplenote is the first note-app I decided to pay for. It does everything evernote did, without all the crap. And a lot of things it does better.

Maybe you'll like wiki.vim (not to be confused with vimwiki). I, like you, tried a lot of solutions, and it's the only one that's really stuck over the past couple of years. I think it's because it doesn't try to do too many things and is just a thin wrapper over a collection of text files (you can specify to use Markdown). Obsidian is fancier but I find that I've been able to replicate most of what I need and don't miss the extra bells and whistles.

Oh, and I've found using a tool like gitwatch really helpful for keeping the repo synced without having to remember to commit.

I'm somewhat surprised that 44 comments in, it looks like I'm the first to mention Roam: https://roamresearch.com/

It obviously wasn't the first note taking app, and it's very much not Free, but the nature of its linking sparked Obsidian and Logseq's growth. I've been a happy paid user since the early days.

The biggest reason I stick with it is that it supports both being E2E encrypted and synchronising, without me having to set anything up. I wouldn't mind running a server, but (unlike many in the comments) I actively don't want my tool to operate on a pile of Markdown documents on the filesystem: because then I need to worry about maintaining those files everywhere I want to access my notes. Roam will automagically drop an encrypted backup on my laptop every day, my regular backup system will take things from there. For day-to-day use, sync is per-block and effectively live.

Trilium.

https://github.com/zadam/trilium

https://github.com/zadam/trilium#trilium-is-in-maintenance-m... seems relevant, and that's above and beyond the license difference between the two (I'm not looking for trouble, I'm only saying they are different)

There is an ongoing community effort to revive it: https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes

I’ve been running this in my homelab since 2021. Can’t live without it now.

I would switch from obsidian to trilium if only they didn't block using h1 (aka # headings).

I read the explination about it being reseved for the title on export but I really didn't find it compelling to break a basic note taking workflow.

After looking in vain for a browser-based Logseq (i.e., the way logseq used to be before APP EVERYTHING!!! began the downward spiral -- the next version won't even use markdown files), I've gone full Leeroy Jenkins on Silverbullet. It's not refined. It's not stable. But it's good enough, it lives in a browser, and it creates markdown. It's also incredibly customizable with Lua, but that's not necessarily a net positive for someone who wants an environment that works simply.

There are hundreds of these note taking programs now, and they all suck. Maybe they're fine if you don't really know how to use a computer, but if you're a developer or some other kind of hacker, and you use a text editor, like Vim/Neovim, Emacs, VS Code, or something else, your notetaking system should be in your text editor. These flashy new note taking programs basically just stick a crappy WYSIWYG text editor inside a web browser (Electron, yuck) and add a few opinionated components like tags or encryption, then try to charge you $9/mo for that, in perpetuity. But you've had the power within you this whole time: encryption with gpg, sync with git, search with grep, editing with your $EDITOR. If you need more, there are some editor plugins that supercharge note taking: vimwiki and vim-notes for vim; org-mode and org-roam for Emacs; Foam for VS Code, and so on. No need to reinvent the wheel.

I choose Joplin over 10 years ago. Because of encryption, multi-client & self-hosting ability and easy import and export of notes. I did this because i want to securely own my private data. Every other tool, I looked before and after, is not able to do this.

Fun Fact: Beside the Joplin App, you can use any other Editor to edit notes (of course after they are encrypted).

I migrated all my notes to Joplin (including importing Evernote and OneNote) and have been using it for awhile but performance is it's biggest issue.

(1) Importing notes takes forever, I'm talking hours, even if you're pointing to a local notes folder.

(2) There is no background sync on mobile so every time it's open the app, wait a 10+ seconds to sync, then open the new note. I've found myself keeping important notes on Keep for quick access.

(3) All notes and resources are in a flat folder so if you have a large database filesystems will struggle and break in strange ways. I guess I hit some limits in OneDrive and it can't list all files so I started missing notes. I ended up doing an audit and found a couple dozen things not syncing. Now I'm paranoid I'll lose more notes and commit all changes to a git repo.

I still think there isn't a better alternative in my case and plan to make improvements to address my pain points.

You likely ran into this issue, which is a bug with onedrive itself: https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/11489#issuecommen...

there will be a failsafe implemented for that issue in version 3.3

personally, I recommend using the s3 sync with cloudflare r2, it's faster than onedrive and it's pretty hard to exceed cloudflare's free tier

Happy Joplin user since 2020. Self-synced using Syncthing. Great note-taking tool overall.

Joplin sync with Joplin server is superb!

There is a backup feature exporting all notes to markdown. Is there a way to backup up all notes this way based on a schedule?

That would address the issue with dependency on a database.

You can do this with the built in backup plugin. In the plugin's settings, set the backup frequency as desired, and then click advanced settings and change the backup format from jex to markdown + frontmatter

The most complete open source Note taking app and exceptionally supported, it has its official Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux app. Exceptional (and e2ee) sync options too.

Been using it for a couple of months now. I wanted to self-host (done), import from Apple Notes, encrypt notes on server (works), mobile access (good app on iOS), be cross-platform. I had some trouble recently on Arch Linux (around the node version) which I am planning to switch to when retired, potentially.

All in all, it works fine, no surprises and I've been able to access my notes from many setups and never lost anything.

I wish Joplin had better collaboration. I want an e2e encrypted, cloud-based solution my entire team can use. Notion UX is great but is useless to me without e2e encryption - and it becomes expensive for teams. Skiff marketed itself as secure but was immediately acquired by Notion.

Not only collaboration but separating notes between my home and my work. Even with the expensive plan, I cannot have 2 accounts linked to the same setup but where the work account would have a access restricted to the work notes. I still use the cheapest plan for personal sync, but I can't use Joplin for work and it saddens me.

Have you tried setting up a Joplin Server?

https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/tree/dev/packages/server

The license is for non-commercial use only

Oof, thanks for the info

I've been using Joplin for years. It was always a bit slow but I recently updated it and now the app takes over 30 seconds to load :|

It's sync feature is super seamless though!

How big is the stack need to take notes?

Org-mode is the way for Emacs users.

The reason I learned emacs. I absolutely love it.

the gateway drug to Emacs, I started with org-mode and 10+ years later, it took over my entire life.

Another alternative to Joplin is Upnote. It just works too.

Not really comparable: - not local-first - sends everything to Google, not encrypted as far as the website goes - you need a phone app to buy premium plan (really???)

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