Free and Open Source Software

A bit of a self promo (I’m the main author), but you may also want to look at SilverBullet as alternative: https://silverbullet.md/

Bit more technical than EverNote. More like Obsidian, but 100% open source and self hosted.

Obsidian. Very simple, all functionality is free, offline, all notes are accessible on your PC, you don't even need Obsidian to open them because they are in Markdown. Has tons of community plugins for every need, even a Notion-like tables plugin. There is an android app which looks fine but I don't use it much so I can't say anything about it. But since all your notes are offline you have to think of ways to sync them. There is a paid Obsidian sync which you dont have to use or you can sync with any other method (manually, github, syncthing, etc...)

Edit: Oops, just realized the post is in FOSS community and Obsidian doesn't seem to be open source. Sorry! I'm not going to delete the comment though, maybe it'll help someone

First off, Notion is vastly superior to Evernote in every way (IMO). They have super streamlined apps for both Android and iOS, and the learning curve is negligible. Fully accessible in any browser, too. Once mastered, Notion is ridiculously powerful, and their free account ridiculously generous.

That being said, I recently discovered Obsidian, and although I have big love for Notion, I don't think I'll be using it anymore.

Obsidian also has apps, both for mobile and (native) desktop (Mac, Win, Linux), ~~is open source~~ (edit: my bad, not open source), and has a thriving plugin community on GitHub.

The learning curve is steeper, and Obsidian is one of those things that's so flexible that it's borderline overwhelming, but if you can wrap your head around how you want to use it, make it suit your needs, it's the absolute bee's knees.

Personally, I use Obsidian on my Mac desktop, and sync my Vaults (basically just a specific folder on your HDD containing your notes (individual markdown.md files) and folders) with Google Drive. I then sync the changes to my Android phone using Autosync for Google Drive, where I use the native Obsidian app, and Google Drive syncs to my Chromebook where I run the Obsidian Linux client.

I can't stress enough how much I love Obsidian, it's truly been one of my top 3 new software revelations in the last 5 years (Raycast and Midjourney being the other two). Highly recommended ❤️

Edit: Sorry, just now noticed this was posted in FOSS, so my suggestions might not be valid. Just thought since you're coming from Evernote, and there are fantastic, free alternatives, you might want to look into those 🙂 Both my recommendations have paid options (Obsidian offers paid sync, but is completely compatible with free alternatives), but both work amazingly without ever opening your wallet.

I personally love Logseq. I use syncthing to sync the files but they're implementing their own syncing feature. Works really fantastic and is cross platform.

I have used Joplin for a good while. I self hosted a little docker server for sync and off I went. There are paid sync plans available though. Nowadays I'm lazy and use the notes of my Nextcloud instance most of the time.

After Evernote announced the price hike a month or so ago I started researching alternatives. I looked into a bunch of different apps/services but decided I did not want to get locked into another proprietary system subject to enshittification. So my main criteria were:

• Cross platform with support for Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Fully Open Source
• Portable/open format files (e.g. Markdown)
• Self-hosted option so files are always on devices I own

Both Joplin and Logseq fit the criteria and were good in my testing when combined with Syncthing to copy files around securely. There are a ton of other options out there but they didn't fit one or more of my wants.

Joplin is a VERY easy transition from Evernote. It can import notes exported from Evernote, has a similar interface, and doesn't take much getting used to.

Logseq is interesting but it's going to take time to get used to its workflow since it's so different. I watched a couple hours worth of videos on its use and it that style may just not be for me.

I went with Syncthing because that means the notes never leave my devices, so there is no need to depend on a server or worry about the security/integrity of the note content. The downside is that syncing outside the house isn't so simple, though it can be nudged to work over a VPN. Not for everyone.

After spending a week or so being happy with Joplin+Syncthing I canceled my Evernote subscription and went back to the free tier, but honestly I haven't even opened it since doing that. I haven't needed anything in it that I couldn't do in Joplin.

I have been using Joplin. It is the best free notes app that i have found.

I use the Notes app of Nextcloud. It syncs flawlessly between Linux and Android. Of course with your own instance of Nextcloud, hosted or self-hosted, you get sooo much more.

I've heard good things about logsec + Syncthing.

I used to use evernote mainly to store OCRed pdfs with some metadata. Moved my workflow over to a self hosted paperless-ngx instance. I'll never go back.

There are several that I've been using / trying out:

• Notion
  • used to be good, but it's becoming more and more bloated, and nowadays those AI command options seem to be cluttering the quick commands.
  • It is freemium, and syncs with their servers.
  • It has a really good table creation system, and the keyboard navigation flows really well.
  • I stopped using it since it's becoming slower and bloated, and migrated my language notes to Obsidian.
• Obsidian
  • is very capable (except that it doesn't a good WYSIWYG table creation / adjustment system),
  • it has tons of community plugins, very fast, lightweight, and customizable.
  • Completely free, but it does take some tinkering, and some parts do look kinda awful.
  • If you've been taking long notes with markdown, then Obsidian will probably suit you.
  • I have all my language notes written in Obsidian and synced to Github with a plugin.
• Anytype
  • is the latest one I'm trying out. Still in alpha, version 0.32
  • It is clunky at times, because the keyboard navigation is not well implemented, you still need to rely on mouse to select some sections.
  • But it has a really interesting type / relation definition system, where you define an object type, e.g. Movie, and you can define templates, relation to other objects (e.g. relation to Directors, etc).
  • I'm currently using it to plan my games / streaming backlog, it has a good table and data view system.

I believe all 3 of them have android apps.

I'm also looking for an alternative to Evernote since they jacked up their prices. My primary use is as a document store for OCR and indexing of scanned paperwork.

For general note taking I'm starting to use Logseq, but I don't think that's the right solution for long term storage, I have over 10 years of scanned documents I want to port across

Paperless-NGX seems to be the best option I found so far, but not installed it yet

This is not at all what it’s meant for but I use Element messenger for this purpose. It’s on all my devices, it’s e2ee, it’s shareable if needs be. It’s also a damn fine messenger in its own right.

I've been using Standard Notes. Its on both Android and iOS, as well as Windows, Mac, and Linux, and even in browser! The basic tier is unlimited notes, but only for text, so no photos or files. I've been using this for a year for my personal writing project and poetry (Will use a word document when I do final copy, but now I just like having it in a notes app). The clients are open source and are available on f-droid. All notes are end-to-end encrypted and the local copies are also encrypted at rest (which some other apps don't do). You can set it to automatically send an encrypted backup to your email every day (which is what I did).

Joplin or Zim.

Since you mentioned ssh and vi(m), I'll throw out vimwiki. No Android app, unless you count termux, and there's a bit of a learning curve, but idk, it really clicks with me.

I am the worst and just transferred everything to OneNote… it works well for what I use it for…

Stardard Notes

How do you access the notes? Only on your own personal devices? If so, Syncthing and and something like Markor for editing the notes on mobile might be an OK solution.

I use emacs with org mode, and the orgzly android app, for my note taking. It fits my needs well enough, though the android app cant do all the fancy latex insertion emacs can.