this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Hey everyone,

I am looking for an alternative for OneNote for Linux. A clone would be perfect, the interface of it and the ability to paste pictures into a very wide notes field is great. Please help me!

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[–] Stronk@vlemmy.net 36 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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

[–] Xenanthropy 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Obsidians great! I do wish it was open-source though :(

[–] ErraticDragon@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] wifienyabledcat 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] harry_meadows@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The Excalidraw plugin may do the trick.

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[–] JebanuusPisusII@szmer.info 6 points 1 year ago

There is an open source alternative called Logseq https://logseq.com/

[–] HeapOfDogs 5 points 1 year ago

Very much this. Obsidian has a learning curve. It needs more than a day to get a feel for.

[–] ivy@fedi196.gay 5 points 1 year ago

Obsidian is hella based

[–] kalipike@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

@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.

@IuseArchbtw

[–] mr_pip@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As your description is rather short and does not really restrict the "recommendation space", I'll start the round of recommendations with Joplin

[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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.

  • Notes and attachments being stored in a database and referenced by a cryptic UID instead of plain files with human readable names makes integration with other apps impossible. And it's bad for data portability
  • On Android I've never been able to get it to background sync. I need to keep Joplin in the foreground. The second I switch to another app it stops syncing
  • On sync conflicts it'll just use the newest note as master and overwrite older changes. Luckily if you realise it happened you can use the history feature to get back lost changes. Typical scenario for me is to add much more stuff to a shopping list while on desktop. 30minutes later open the app on Android while shopping to tick off an item. Realize all the recently added items from desktop are gone to the ether (stored in history on the desktop and other synced devices)

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?

[–] chri5@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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.

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[–] 1337admin@1337lemmy.com 4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] LordChaos82@discuss.tchncs.de 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Big_Lanids 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] radau@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] lumarius 4 points 1 year ago

you can sync them with dav on nextcloud, then joplin takes care of pushing and pulling but the files are on nextcloud

[–] tvmole@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] reddog 5 points 1 year ago

I use the same setup: Joplin and SyncThing. Works well on my macbook and windows boxen.

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[–] rubbs@midwest.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I would suggest Logseq. It's excellent and a step up from One Note IMHO.

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[–] I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] tool@r.rosettast0ned.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hopefully we get some warning signs before it ends up in the Google Graveyard.

The probability of that happening just barely hovers above zero.

Over a decade later, I'm still bitter about how they unceremoniously dumped Google Reader's corpse into the ground with effectively no notice.

[–] tkchumly@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago

Google play music was the last straw for me. I will never depend on them for a service ever again. They just aren't reliable.

[–] Lodespawn@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

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.

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[–] shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Standard Notes is the downright best notes software, highly recommend it as a OneNote alt!

[–] mr_pip@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] shreddy_scientist@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Yep, also encrypted and cross platform too!

[–] SkinOfAnOrange@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

+1 for Standard Notes it's brilliant!

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[–] ozoned 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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!

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[–] tom42 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] mcatis 4 points 1 year ago

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.

[–] warboyziri@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

@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

[–] buckykat@lemmy.fmhy.ml 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] any1th3r3 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wasn't aware of that one, thanks! Bummer though, the mobile port doesn't seem to have been updated for a while :/

[–] buckykat@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I wasn't even aware there was a mobile port, I use it on a 2-in-1 laptop with a stylus

[–] HiddenRetro 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Joplin is great but Obsidian is definitely worth checking out. You can find both as flatpaks.

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[–] CamilleMellom@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you use vscode, the foam extension is great!

[–] abhibeckert 3 points 1 year ago

Thank you! Trying it out now and it's amazing.

[–] klangcola@reddthat.com 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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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[–] MayonnaiseArch 3 points 1 year ago

I'd try anytype too, it's a lot of stuff and almost out of beta. It seems pretty good

[–] ivereadalltheory 3 points 1 year ago

Logseq is my go to. It can be as simple or complex as you want, and it's open source under AGPL 3.0 which is really important to me.

[–] privsecfoss@feddit.dk 3 points 1 year ago

Markor on Android, nvim on Linux and sync with syncthing. Using markdown.

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