Check out Obsidian! The canvas feature is very similar to onenote snd obsidian in general is the best notwtaking app/ personal knowledge management system in existence
Obsidians great! I do wish it was open-source though :(
I switched to Obsidian not too long ago.
For my needs, Joplin was a good open source alternative.
Between the two I went with Obsidian because, while the apps are closed-source, the data is accessible. All your notes are just stored in plaintext (with markdown) as simple files in a directory structure.
Joplin, in contrast, uses a SQLite database which adds a layer of complexity.
This was one of the main selling features for me (before I tried it and experienced all the other killer features). I've experienced a bad case of vendor-lock before where it was hell to export my data. So having it all available in plain text at all times is really reassuring.
Obsidian is what I use mostly, it syncs great with syncthing across all my devices. It doesn't have drawing support, so whenever I need to doodle something I end up in samsung notes again.
Obsidian is hella based
Very much this. Obsidian has a learning curve. It needs more than a day to get a feel for.
@Stronk +1 for Obsidian! I love it. It's definitely different than OneNote. Notion may actually be a better fit for you, but I encourage everyone to check out Obsidian just to see if it's for you! Excellent software.
As your description is rather short and does not really restrict the "recommendation space", I'll start the round of recommendations with Joplin
Joplin also has a great web-clipper through a companion addon in Firefox (and I assume also Chromium)
Joplin is great in many ways, and I do use it to some degree, but there's a few things that irks me.
Hopefully these sync issues are some rare bug for me. I've tried all the usual "battery saving" tricks in android, but still Joplin will not background sync. Other apps like DavX5 sync fine. Are anybody else here having luck with Joplin on mobile?
As far as I know it's a known limitation. Joplin just does not have background sync. It's ok for my use case but the initial sync can take a long time depending on your database size. Other than that, I'm happy with Joplin.
I used Joplin on Windows and iPhone - syncing (encrypted) using a OneDrive account. So far working well.
Do you use Joplin? I've heard about it a ton but I can't figure out when I'd ever use it. I use Bookstack for a Wiki and then I have an empty (besides myself) Matrix room that I use for quick notes or something I need to send from my phone to a different device. And then I also have Nextcloud and could just use docs there. I love self hosting open source apps but I struggle to see how often I'd use Joplin (or any note app) over other options. I'm hoping you or somebody can finally make something click for me.
I tried it once but didn't see the use of it, but I saw it recommended often and I can see why, because it is nice to sync notes with your phone, if you need it there. I personally am a fan of the suckless/KISS mentality and just use syncthing to sync my plain markdown notes between devices.
one thing that annoyed me, though, was that the markdown editor in joplin always inserted some weird blank lines or spacings. That might not be relevant or even obvious for someone who just uses the rich text formatting editor, but I mostly used the plain text editor and eventually asked myself what joplin is basically useful for in my use case, as I already had syncthing in place and I could just use any plain text editor of my choice. So for me the benefit of hierarchically structuring my notes was not worth the extra program on my computer/phone, especially considering that syncthing and vim/codium are programs specifically created for the use case that joplin tries to merge into a single product. But I might be an extreme case, as I have also replaced Nextcloud with Filebrowser and Syncthing, so take my words with a grain of salt.
TLDR: Joplin is a great program and I can recommend it, it is just not suited for fans of the KISS mentality.
I tried Joplin, but found it more cumbersome than just directly using markdown files, and rw them with Markor on Android. On Linux, I will just directly rw the markdown files in vim, or vscode if I want to get fancy.
amen, bro!
I selfhost my Joplin server and use the clients on my Linux desktop, my windows laptop, iphone and Android. It is definitely one of my favorite selfhosted apps. To prevent any issues with sync, the first thing I do when I open the app is to click the Sync button and do the same when I close the app at the end of the day. This way I ensure that I am always working with the latest version. It has not failed me so far, considering I am a very heavy user and have quite a few notes running at any given day.
And I'm another who self hosts Joplin. My wife and I use it on our desktops and mobile devices. We specifically switched to it from One Note and it's been perfect for our use!
I used it extensively as I was writing (I'm an author) to make notes about things I needed to go back and correct, or an idea to incorporate, etc.
Interesting I didn't know you could even host a server for it. I use Joplin with local files and nextcloud to sync them I'll have to check that out
you can sync them with dav on nextcloud, then joplin takes care of pushing and pulling but the files are on nextcloud
I would suggest Logseq. It's excellent and a step up from One Note IMHO.
I use Joplin and sync the notes between devices (including Android) with Syncthing. There's lots of other options for syncing, but I already had Syncthing set up and liked it
I use the same setup: Joplin and SyncThing. Works well on my macbook and windows boxen.
Joplin is amazing. I think I have it syncing through OneDrive (I don't use OneDrive or any Microsoft products so I'm not sure why I did that), but it has so many options to sync using things you may already use
Standard Notes is the downright best notes software, highly recommend it as a OneNote alt!
is that FOSS?
Yep, also encrypted and cross platform too!
Meanwhile here's me still using Google Keep...
Hopefully we get some warning signs before it ends up in the Google Graveyard.
It does manage copy / paste of images fairly well.
I switched to OneNote a few years ago and was going crazy trying to find a bunch of notes I took .. turns out they were all in Keep happily noting away.
Keep was great but I find the OneNote structure and flexibility a bit more useful.
I can say I've never heard of any of these recommended.
Standard Notes: https://standardnotes.com
Obsidian: https://obsidian.md/
Xournal++: https://xournalpp.github.io/
They all look great! Checking these out later!
Because nobody mentioned it already I want to bring Notesnook in.
It is very privacy friendly, OpenSource and cross platform. Just if you want to sync there is no self hosted solution yet.
I've been using Notesnook for nearly a year and I'm really happy with it as well. Very feature-rich and easy to use despite a focus on security. I had a scare recently with an important note seemingly disappearing, and I was saved thanks to a really nicely implemented note history functionality that I didn't even know existed.
I will say that some of the design decisions can be a bit confusing, so it's worth testing it out before buying. Even a year in I find myself a bit thrown off by how exactly the relationships between notebooks, topics, tags, etc are expected to work.
Joplin is great but Obsidian is definitely worth checking out. You can find both as flatpaks.
If you are looking for a handwritten notes app that syncs across devices you could give Saber a try.
Nice one 👍. I've been looking to replace onenote handwritten notes for years with something with better Linux support. Interested to give this a try! Thanks for sharing!
Markor on Android, nvim on Linux and sync with syncthing. Using markdown.
@IuseArchbtw I switched to Zettlr a few years ago and never looked back https://zettlr.com/ there are tons of markdown apps in other platforms that can give you the cross-platform feel but for desktop this is it for me
Notesnook is a pretty good service. More of a less clunky Evernote. It's free by default but has paid for options and also very privacy focused.
Zim Desktop Wiki: https://zim-wiki.org/
It's good for creating interconnected articles on your desktop. No mobile version though, so it's more of a knowledge base that a notes app.
Attachments and links to external files work beautifully. WYSIWYG editor, all articles stores as plain text files with zim wiki syntax, attachments are plain files in folders
Technically OneNote online in office 365 is also an option
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