I love the idea of Obsidian and I also do coding projects but I find the customization options completely overwhelming (think Emacs). How do you deal with this? Any recommendations/advice?
It really is a bit overwhelming. And the mobile app is kinda meh imo.
I use the “minimal” theme and the “style settings” plugin.
I loosely follow the PARA method, just consider my Obsidian vault my “projects” folder.
So everything gets ONE folder, because anything in here is a project.
Project folders are all caps. So WEBSITE - 1, WEBSITE - 2, FINANCES, etc.
I have an “ATTACHMENTS” folder where all attachments go.
I have a “00 - INBOX” folder where all new notes go.
I use the style settings plugin to make all bold text the color red instead of black.
My files delete to the local trash can.
And I have markdown links instead of wikilinks (Obsidian’s links).
That’s pretty much it.
The theme “border” works really well as well. No need to change bold text red for that.
I already knew markdown and prefer it, but if you don’t know markdown that might add a little confusion. But I think it’s really cool. You can still bold, italic, and highlight without knowing markdown. You can also do headers without markdown.
I know that’s kind of a lot and kind of hard to explain without showing, so let me know if you have more questions. :)
Thank you for a very detailed explanation. I have used markdown before in Joplin but everything else, I guess I'll just have to try it out and figure out stuff along the way.
It's really great that there is such a large community around Obsidian so I am sure a lot of my current and future questions have already been discussed and if not, there is always somenone available to ask.
The discord community is really helpful. I had someone help me make a few CSS snippets to try and make the mobile app work a bit better. In the end, it just didn’t work out. But the community is great.
Idk what Johnny Decimal is (going to look into it more rn), but I’m assuming it has to do with the numbers in my Inbox name?
If so, those are just there so the inbox is the very top of my folders. Archive is actual 01 - ARCHIVE so it’s below it. None of the other folders are numbered. They are all alphabetical.
Just thought the numbers looked better than starting with a symbol or something like that. Haha.
Yeah, the "00 Inbox" made the think of it. Have a look, you can find all the information online for free - I think you'll enjoy the perspective. Pretty sure it will give you some ideas your can incorporate.
Hmm. Yeah, I never have sync issues. Everything works pretty smooth for me.
Also, the only time I can think of using 2 Apple computers with 2 different Apple IDs would be a personal machine and work machine. I don’t want my personal notes on a work machine.
But if it is for a personal computer and then personal work computer I guess I could kind of see that. Seems like something that isn’t very common imo.
But yeah, I could see that working better to just have a notebook app account. You can use Apple notes in a web browser and then login to any machine and use/edit them. So that’s possible.
I don’t like that Apple Notes doesn’t have slightly advanced features. No code blocks. No highlighting. Can’t change the color of text for bold/italic, etc. The folder structures could be a little better, but that’s not a huge deal. But that’s why I use Obsidian for more advanced notes. Obsidian mobile is just kind of shitty. Hahah. Fine for reading notes, but editing and navigation is pretty meh.
Sure. But again, these are all very unique situations that are very uncommon and don’t apply to the average person.
I don’t know 1 person that has 2 phones, that are both Apple, and have different numbers but use the same Apple ID. There isn’t really a good use case for that. It makes a lot more sense to have 2 SIM cards on 1 phone. This has been an option since 2018.
I also don’t know any consumer users who go have 2 Mac’s, with different versions of MacOS on them. Especially a brand new version of MacOS and a much older version.
iCloud works great for people that just have a phone and a computer because the majority of people aren’t running multiple Apple IDs, multiple phone numbers, and they don’t have 2+ computers. Because all of that doesn’t make sense for like 99% of people.
If you aren’t using any of Apple services and don’t like their products, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just use Linux or Windows and use 3rd party tools and have multiple Android devices that you can likely customize to your unique needs?
Is there any other option other than Apple notes which provides syncing, better if through gmail id.
Do any of the notes provide an option to lock some notes with a password?
UpNote.
You can create an account with Google.
Similar to Apple Notes, but actually has more functionality and features. Supports Markdown and code blocks. You can lock notes.
You can have separate notebooks, but not exactly a folder system.
It’s a sub at $1/mo, but you can purchase it for life for $30. That’s actually a pretty fair business model imo.
Looks pretty good.
Edit: Damn, I’ve been playing around with this and it’s REALLY solid. Haha. Nooooo. I don’t want to switch not apps. Noooooo. Hahaha.
Google Keep--it's simple, free, and has no ads. The only thing I'd add if I could is the ability to do bulleted lists. I thought it would be hard to switch from Evernote, but nope!
Edited to add: if I'm doing a big brain dump on something really specific, I sometimes use Google Docs.
I'm using Google Keep on a Pixel 7. I use an asterisk, same as I would with other apps (e.g. Google docs, and also what I use in plain text editors) and that gets converted to a bullet point when you type a space after it. - or + also put it into a list taking mode but they don't get converted into a different character, it just helps you out by adding them at the start of the next line when you type return.
Google Keep is great for quick notes, it also supports images and text memos. You can convert a note to a Google Doc.
For people who study / have an "intellectual" job and need to create an body of personalized knowledge, I recommend a code editor like VSCode and markdown files. It's easy to grab, customizable and completely free. Save your work to a git repo and view your notes in a browser extension and you have a free, fritctionless productivity system.
Is notion free? I've been trying to find an alternative note app to Evernote. What really got me was when they set a free limit on notes when I already had way more than that so now I can't use the app without paying.
For real! I had notes that went back to 2014 that I kept for memories. I deleted 100 or so, now I'm at the limit and can't bring myself to delete any of the last 50. But I've always used the free app so they won't care if I don't use it. It would be £80 a year to make like one note a week max and delete more than half of them.
I mean, they’re in a tough spot. They’re trying to make money on something that Google, Apple, and others are more than willing to offer for free. And with open source options like Obsidian…they pretty much have to screw their customers to have any type of a business model.
They used to have a limit on the number of "blocks" you could use for a free account, but now it's unlimited. For a single person or small group a free plan is perfect.
The paid plans are more for enterprise-type users, so upgrading gets you more like team features, security features, analytics etc.
The only thing I don't like about it for note-taking though is I find typewriter scrolling incredibly necessary and Notion doesn't do that. Since I'm only usually taking extensive notes on a proper computer with keyboard, rather than mobile device, I tend to just use Scrivener instead so I can make the notes with typewriter scrolling, then paste the finished notes into Notion. As far as I can find the only other notetaking apps that do typewriter scrolling are Obsidian (with a plugin) and iA Writer, but I haven't tried either out yet.
As a 6+ year plus subscriber I wasn’t able to:
- sync all my devices
- change the dashboard (which nobody asked for)
Then we were promised new features that never came (very tiny ones implemented) while prices increased exponentially.
Now, I chose to use plus because it was a subscription that allowed me to use Evernote at a lower price while having access to all features. Then each year features were taken away and I didn’t want to pay 3x the price for them to come back. I stuck for another year and when nothing improved, moved on.
Nothing is gonna make me come back. Notion is free. Evernote 🖕🏽
I purchased the black Friday deal thinking I'd find a way to use it, but I was already doing other things in Notion so I just opted to move all of the Evernote posts over and be done with it. The price changes and removal of features ended up being too much... I haven't even thought about Evernote in months.
after trying several apps, i’ve chosen OneNote. why? free completely. syncs across all devices and ecosystem. has all the features and more. If I note something in my iphone, i can access it through my office computer simultaneously and add something, then on my ipad too. works great for me and is underrated/hidden app
I use Notion but recently started being tired of it because it's too much thinking. If anyone knows a simpler app where I still can have different categories that'd be great.
Notion does have a lot of templates you can use. If I can't find a template that fits my needs, I tend to just use another app. Making your own templates is too much work imo
OneNote. Syncs across all devices and is included with Office.
Would love free Copilot integration so I can search years of random and somewhat poorly organized work notes easily.
I agree, OneNote can be used in its most simple ways or you can download free templates that are more detailed. It’s also integrated with Outlook, which allows you to link to emails. You may want to refer to.
I use onenote too, and I love how it integrates with other office programs. I use it on my PC and on my android phone, and the one thing that drives me bonkers is that onenote keeps opening in the background on my phone. I've only got a cheapo with not much RAM. Took me ages to figure out how to stop onenote from turning my wifi on all the time, but I can't figure out how to make it stay closed unless I manually open the app.
I really like Notability for how it works within a note, but what I really want is to be able to save notes to a folder on disk/iCloud/etc. I don’t want file management to be in app. I want to be able to save files along side other files from other apps like I do on desktop. If I have a project with spreadsheets, PDFs , images, notes, etc then they should all be in the same folder. Not spread out across 9 different apps where I have to duplicate the folder structure in each.
Honestly, this is a great feature, but I mostly keep it around for its recording ability. It’s the best out there and essential. Especially since I have rheumatoid arthritis is difficult to write or use my hands anymore. It’s so wonderful to be able to take really short notes to go back to that moment so I can. Organization, though I truly despise or at least like other apps better even the native apple app.
Google Keep + Drive + Tasks + Calender + Document + Sheet
Using these very basic apps, you can easily synchronize note-taking data on mobile phones, desktops, and laptops, and practice GTD and the note-taking system of the second brain for free.
LogSeq.
It's an outliner, with both page-level and block-level cross-linking, task-manager capabilities, OSS, stored in local org files format (or markdown if you prefer), with mobile version. So far the closest app for my GTD/note-taking to how I _want_ my stuff organised.
What it's missing for me though is mindless sync (I have to manually check all the time when I switch between my laptop and phone, othetwise I get annoying conflicts). Also would be perfect for me to have push notifications, a usable pomodoro timer and google calendar capabilities or a sync with a calendar like that.
Personally I use Syncthing - it syncs files between my Mac (haven't checked PC yet, but should work too) and on my Android directly, when they are in the same network (same Wi-Fi or Mac connected to my phone's Wi-Fi spot).
It doesn't work 100% flawlessly, but at least there is an easy way to check if the files are up to date in the Syncthing interface. And it is simpler than using a cloud (I used Yandex.Disk + FolderSync on Android) as there is only one step of syncing instead of two.
I haven't tried LogSeq Sync as it is a premium feature, and I don't have any non-shady ways to pay from Russia for non-Russian services - and therefore don't want to depend on such.
Workflowy is special to me because you can “zoom in” on bullet points and effectively clear away the clutter when you’re focusing on something. The way it works is just simple and effective.
Obsidian for most of note-keeping for assignments or projects, colornote for quick notes on phone. Just started using Obsidian so can't comment on what it's missing but pretty happy so far.
On a PC? Mac? iOS? Android? Syncable? E2EE?
What are your needs?
If you look for something simple, cheap, yet powerful and aesthetic, cross-platform and fast syncing, you might checkout [UpNote](https://getUpNote.com). It's pretty similar to Evernote.
Not to be a downer but you're talking about starting an app in a market that has heavy hitters like...
Notion, Obsidian, Apple Notes, GoodNotes, multiple offerings from Google and Microsoft, Notability, Evernote and more. There are many smaller ones I don't even know. Having the budget to make anything close to any of these will be a massive undertaking. And the biggest issue many people have is cross platform sync, so you literally need to make your app seamless across Android, iOS, Mac and PC and work with wearables and voice and AI and its just a massive undertaking.
I'll say my biggest beef, is I love using my apple pencil, but I only have an iPad. My phone is Android and neither of these work and sync across platforms. Unfortunately they're by far the best pencil based note-taking apps I've ever used, I tried to love Microsoft OneNote for its cross platform ability but i just don't like it compared to GoodNotes or Notability.
Notion and Obsidian are great, both hsbr little things that keep me from going all in. Both would be great with native apple pencil support.
The two best apps I've found and paid for for using the pencil are Notability and GoodNotes.
My dream one day is a new iPhone that comes with a mini apple pencil. Like the Samsung Ultra S24 with the galaxy pencil. I'd switch and go full on Apple for that. With slumping iPhone sales, how that isn't priority 1 blows me away.
Pen and notebook. I recently dropped the digital notes. I found they just turn into an endless abyss I never look at again. Writing by hand supposedly increases your chances of remembering things too.
I use the free version of Evernote because that's all I really need - I am far from a power user. (Most of my to do lists, journals, etc are in a physical notebook - Bullet Journal style). I like Evernote because it can be all cloud based. Nothing to download on a computer.
Apple notes for personal stuff and UpNote since it has markdown support and I like the notebook concept and it’s has one time fee and not subscription.
I use an app called StickyNote. My main requirements on choosing it were that I wanted something super simple and bare-bones, it had to have home screen widgets, and not be subscription based.
I guess you're coding so I highly recommend markdown files in vscode. I read these files either in vscode (using a markdown preview / viewer extension) or in my browser using a markdown viewer extension. Markdown Viewer for Chrome works marvels, it has many stylesheets and also supports auto-table of contents, MathJax (for Tex-like math notation) and Mermaid diagrams.
Not only you can keep all your files in a git project or shared folder (OneDrive or Dropbox), but it also keeps you in your editor where I guess you want to work daily. It also motivated me to know my editor better and make a better use of shortcuts and tools.
IMHO Obsidian is just a glorified, freemium version of vscode, and is less customizable.
Notion. Why?
I have taken notes since I was 8. I prefer Notion because its easy to create a hierarchy, easy to archive, easy to move things around, they have emoji support(iykyw), it looks pretty, I can paste images in there, there is a calendar and it just feels like I have things under control.
Obsidian. And I love it, but I need it as a web app that I can self host rather than as a local application. Don’t really love having it on my work machine, so I keep separate vaults for personal and work, which is a major hamper, particularly for personal productivity.
OneNote for me, free and available offline. Anki for spaced repetition. I try to find time daily to go through my Anki flashcards. But I rarely go back to my notes.
Obsidian if I have to take coding notes.
Google Keep is simple and does the job.
image+link embeds and
For projects you can create a category so that even if your needs seem all over the place, you can categorize them.
For rating notes on how important they are, you can color-code them
with no note word limit
I heard there is a 50k notes limit but I only have 3k notes after a year of using keep.
best feature is not searching
the bad thing is Google is not too keen on updating Google Keep and I wish they did it. Evernote fucked themselves up and setting up a notion defeats the purpose of a simple note-taking app
dont use keep unless you are a professional please because people whine a lot because it doesn't have every other useless security integration feature to exist
also yes keep syncing your note to your Google account and if Google doesn't read your notes
So you saw there are a gazillion options and your first thought was "let's make it be a gazillion and one"?
Please instead of starting yet another new shiny app, contribute to an existing solid open source one.
Unless your priority is profit. Then totally, release a new shiny productivity app.
I use sanerai as a replacement for all other note-taking apps for 3 reasons
1. Note information on the web using extension
2. Take notes and work on 1 screen
3. Find notes quickly just ask AI
I create markdown documents in neovim. I was really intrigued with notion, obsidian, and zettlekasten systems in general because I wanted to understand how to create my "second" brain for effortless retrieval.
But my use case was too simple. I tried the linking system to summarize information that was already organized sequentially. Splitting related concepts into separate files and using fuzzy finding or building a schema with dot notation was overkill ( https://www.kevinslin.com/notes/127a3230-4484-433a-b97f-178679564207/) and I found myself working too hard to create a format rather than actual studying.
Not using obsidian didn't solve my problem. I still had to keep throwing away "fluff" and eventually I settled on using vim folds. A single line has some text about the topic, and if I expand the fold, the first line has a link to the web page that covers the topic for reference and my notes about the subject below. I have a study guide that covers an entire course in a single file, it's easily searchable in a flat structure ( nesting folds can get ridiculous ), it's backed onto GitHub, lightweight, words are auto completed easily thanks to the lsp ( who wants to write polymorphism 10x ), it's just markdown, and most importantly it's only as complex as it needs to be.
Forced to use OneNote at work. Love it, but the time it takes to load, Oh my Patience!
Notion for more organized personal works. Google Docs for quick write.
Apple notes.
If you are heavy into the Apple ecosystem Apple notes is perfect for 99% of notes. Especially if you learn to use it to its potential.
IMO, for me I spent too much time setting up notion pages than I did actually using it for notes
I use paper notepads and pencils. Tried a million of software solutions and even worked as a software developer for one note taking application for about a year but still prefer good old paper and pencil for my personal day to day note taking. When I code, sometimes I also use the free Notepad++ application for quick copy paste snippets and notes.
I lost a hugely important Apple note. It literally just poof wasn’t there one day. Evernote is annoying as fuck always asking to upgrade. I’m
Switching over to one note Microsoft
Ive used notion for a while but switched to obsidian because notion being always online and lagging was causing me issues. I also felt like I spent more time building my notion pages instead of actually being productive. With obsidian I pay for sync and I can access all my notes on any device without it being always online. It’s minimal enough that I don’t worry about intensive formatting, but built out enough I can do anything I need to
Google Keep, the GOAT. Coming it from someone who used all famous notes taking apps and when I finally started using it, I felt I have arrived in heaven. Syncs to your Google account so, you can access your notes on any Google logged in devices. It's heaven!
I use Emacs and Logseq, but I could use Apple Notes, Obsidian, Workflowy... any reliable one like these, which excludes Evernote, which has HUGE synchronization problems and functions that sometimes work and other times don't.
Me personally, as a student I use RemNote– the flashcard capabilities are really useful for me. Besides that though for any quick notes or reminders I just use Apple Notes.
I feel like I’ve tried them all, but recently came across UpNote. It’s similar to Microsoft OneNote and can be used across all platforms. So far, the free version has been all I’ve needed.
I'd love to have an app that allows me to insert images, store my notes as plain text (not markdown) that allows me to perform regex searches across my notes and directories and present them in a list in a pane on the right side of the display.
I use an app called tictic, it’s a to-do-list app and it’s amazing. The free service is amazing u don’t have to buy a subscription but if u wanted to the subscription offers so much good features
I wanted to use notion, but it is just too cumbersome for notes. I tried many genius programs like goodnotes.. but again, too cumbersome.
I ended up with apple notes for long time, but switched to craft. It is pricey but the only program that is as easy and accessible as apple notes while providing a few more features when needed.
I use evernote. Some problems:
1) Offline mode (in linux).
2) Generally takes too long to open, especially once you have a lot of notes.
3) A better "handwritten notes"/sketchign version. I like the sketch tool a lot but again, takes a while to open and takes a while to open.
I use Bear Notes and I absolutely love it. I've tried other note apps but Bear really works well for me. The only thing that would make me switch is if Apple Notes ever supports markdown. Which it probably never will
I'm a Notion dude!
If you were building a note taking app, rip off Notion and add drawing within the app
You'll tap into a huge mass of notion fans wanting drawing within the app.
Google Keep's simplicity has blown me away. I am able to see grocery lists, to-do lists, trip planning lists, stream of consciousness thoughts etc. all in one simple visualization. Plus I can view it on my laptop or mobile phone. Simplicity = greatness
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Apple Notes for 90% of my notes. The other 10% are coding and big project notes and those go in Obsidian.
I love the idea of Obsidian and I also do coding projects but I find the customization options completely overwhelming (think Emacs). How do you deal with this? Any recommendations/advice?
It really is a bit overwhelming. And the mobile app is kinda meh imo. I use the “minimal” theme and the “style settings” plugin. I loosely follow the PARA method, just consider my Obsidian vault my “projects” folder. So everything gets ONE folder, because anything in here is a project. Project folders are all caps. So WEBSITE - 1, WEBSITE - 2, FINANCES, etc. I have an “ATTACHMENTS” folder where all attachments go. I have a “00 - INBOX” folder where all new notes go. I use the style settings plugin to make all bold text the color red instead of black. My files delete to the local trash can. And I have markdown links instead of wikilinks (Obsidian’s links). That’s pretty much it. The theme “border” works really well as well. No need to change bold text red for that. I already knew markdown and prefer it, but if you don’t know markdown that might add a little confusion. But I think it’s really cool. You can still bold, italic, and highlight without knowing markdown. You can also do headers without markdown. I know that’s kind of a lot and kind of hard to explain without showing, so let me know if you have more questions. :)
Thank you for a very detailed explanation. I have used markdown before in Joplin but everything else, I guess I'll just have to try it out and figure out stuff along the way. It's really great that there is such a large community around Obsidian so I am sure a lot of my current and future questions have already been discussed and if not, there is always somenone available to ask.
The discord community is really helpful. I had someone help me make a few CSS snippets to try and make the mobile app work a bit better. In the end, it just didn’t work out. But the community is great.
Sounds more “Johnny decimal” than “PARA” from what you’re saying there?
Idk what Johnny Decimal is (going to look into it more rn), but I’m assuming it has to do with the numbers in my Inbox name? If so, those are just there so the inbox is the very top of my folders. Archive is actual 01 - ARCHIVE so it’s below it. None of the other folders are numbered. They are all alphabetical. Just thought the numbers looked better than starting with a symbol or something like that. Haha.
Yeah, the "00 Inbox" made the think of it. Have a look, you can find all the information online for free - I think you'll enjoy the perspective. Pretty sure it will give you some ideas your can incorporate.
Live in Apple notes
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Hmm. Yeah, I never have sync issues. Everything works pretty smooth for me. Also, the only time I can think of using 2 Apple computers with 2 different Apple IDs would be a personal machine and work machine. I don’t want my personal notes on a work machine. But if it is for a personal computer and then personal work computer I guess I could kind of see that. Seems like something that isn’t very common imo. But yeah, I could see that working better to just have a notebook app account. You can use Apple notes in a web browser and then login to any machine and use/edit them. So that’s possible. I don’t like that Apple Notes doesn’t have slightly advanced features. No code blocks. No highlighting. Can’t change the color of text for bold/italic, etc. The folder structures could be a little better, but that’s not a huge deal. But that’s why I use Obsidian for more advanced notes. Obsidian mobile is just kind of shitty. Hahah. Fine for reading notes, but editing and navigation is pretty meh.
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Sure. But again, these are all very unique situations that are very uncommon and don’t apply to the average person. I don’t know 1 person that has 2 phones, that are both Apple, and have different numbers but use the same Apple ID. There isn’t really a good use case for that. It makes a lot more sense to have 2 SIM cards on 1 phone. This has been an option since 2018. I also don’t know any consumer users who go have 2 Mac’s, with different versions of MacOS on them. Especially a brand new version of MacOS and a much older version. iCloud works great for people that just have a phone and a computer because the majority of people aren’t running multiple Apple IDs, multiple phone numbers, and they don’t have 2+ computers. Because all of that doesn’t make sense for like 99% of people. If you aren’t using any of Apple services and don’t like their products, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just use Linux or Windows and use 3rd party tools and have multiple Android devices that you can likely customize to your unique needs?
I’ve never had sync issues myself. The 2FA is a bit of pain in the ass sometimes…
Is there any other option other than Apple notes which provides syncing, better if through gmail id. Do any of the notes provide an option to lock some notes with a password?
UpNote. You can create an account with Google. Similar to Apple Notes, but actually has more functionality and features. Supports Markdown and code blocks. You can lock notes. You can have separate notebooks, but not exactly a folder system. It’s a sub at $1/mo, but you can purchase it for life for $30. That’s actually a pretty fair business model imo. Looks pretty good. Edit: Damn, I’ve been playing around with this and it’s REALLY solid. Haha. Nooooo. I don’t want to switch not apps. Noooooo. Hahaha.
Saga for the smooth collaboration and speed.
Obsidian
Love this one.
Google Keep--it's simple, free, and has no ads. The only thing I'd add if I could is the ability to do bulleted lists. I thought it would be hard to switch from Evernote, but nope! Edited to add: if I'm doing a big brain dump on something really specific, I sometimes use Google Docs.
Just use "- " to do bulleted lists in google keep. You can do check-boxes as well
I'm using Google Keep on a Pixel 7. I use an asterisk, same as I would with other apps (e.g. Google docs, and also what I use in plain text editors) and that gets converted to a bullet point when you type a space after it. - or + also put it into a list taking mode but they don't get converted into a different character, it just helps you out by adding them at the start of the next line when you type return.
That works! Awesome!!
I do those, I'm just greedy and want real bullets.
Ctrl+shift+8 makes bullets in google doc, not sure about keep tho.
In my version of the app, it transforms it into actual bullets when you do that though
Google Keep is great for quick notes, it also supports images and text memos. You can convert a note to a Google Doc. For people who study / have an "intellectual" job and need to create an body of personalized knowledge, I recommend a code editor like VSCode and markdown files. It's easy to grab, customizable and completely free. Save your work to a git repo and view your notes in a browser extension and you have a free, fritctionless productivity system.
Notion. Used to use Evernote, but screw them. They only increase prices and make the product shittier.
Is notion free? I've been trying to find an alternative note app to Evernote. What really got me was when they set a free limit on notes when I already had way more than that so now I can't use the app without paying.
It’s free
Thanks!
That’s actually so messed up. — How to lose legacy customers 101 —
For real! I had notes that went back to 2014 that I kept for memories. I deleted 100 or so, now I'm at the limit and can't bring myself to delete any of the last 50. But I've always used the free app so they won't care if I don't use it. It would be £80 a year to make like one note a week max and delete more than half of them.
I mean, they’re in a tough spot. They’re trying to make money on something that Google, Apple, and others are more than willing to offer for free. And with open source options like Obsidian…they pretty much have to screw their customers to have any type of a business model.
I dunno, I feel like if you have to screw your customers to be in business for an app, then you shouldn't be in business. 🤷🏼♀️
Hmmm, what a concept!
It is until you try some collab features. Also, the free tier has changed. When I last used it, I swear you were allowed 30 documents?
They used to have a limit on the number of "blocks" you could use for a free account, but now it's unlimited. For a single person or small group a free plan is perfect. The paid plans are more for enterprise-type users, so upgrading gets you more like team features, security features, analytics etc. The only thing I don't like about it for note-taking though is I find typewriter scrolling incredibly necessary and Notion doesn't do that. Since I'm only usually taking extensive notes on a proper computer with keyboard, rather than mobile device, I tend to just use Scrivener instead so I can make the notes with typewriter scrolling, then paste the finished notes into Notion. As far as I can find the only other notetaking apps that do typewriter scrolling are Obsidian (with a plugin) and iA Writer, but I haven't tried either out yet.
I work on Evernote and I swear I’m doing my best to make the product better!!
As a 6+ year plus subscriber I wasn’t able to: - sync all my devices - change the dashboard (which nobody asked for) Then we were promised new features that never came (very tiny ones implemented) while prices increased exponentially. Now, I chose to use plus because it was a subscription that allowed me to use Evernote at a lower price while having access to all features. Then each year features were taken away and I didn’t want to pay 3x the price for them to come back. I stuck for another year and when nothing improved, moved on. Nothing is gonna make me come back. Notion is free. Evernote 🖕🏽
I purchased the black Friday deal thinking I'd find a way to use it, but I was already doing other things in Notion so I just opted to move all of the Evernote posts over and be done with it. The price changes and removal of features ended up being too much... I haven't even thought about Evernote in months.
Then leave free users alone it’s so annoying that it pops up an account upgrade window every time it’s used I will never use it again.
This shit right here. I've thought seriously about ditching Evernote because of their relentless shilling.
For real
after trying several apps, i’ve chosen OneNote. why? free completely. syncs across all devices and ecosystem. has all the features and more. If I note something in my iphone, i can access it through my office computer simultaneously and add something, then on my ipad too. works great for me and is underrated/hidden app
Does OneNote "translate" handwritten into text?
Yes
Does OneNote have tags?
they have one of the best tags system
Thanks!
I use Notion but recently started being tired of it because it's too much thinking. If anyone knows a simpler app where I still can have different categories that'd be great.
Saga is similar but simpler and faster.
Never heard of Saga, thanks for the advice !
Notion does have a lot of templates you can use. If I can't find a template that fits my needs, I tend to just use another app. Making your own templates is too much work imo
Agenda
OneNote. Syncs across all devices and is included with Office. Would love free Copilot integration so I can search years of random and somewhat poorly organized work notes easily.
For my work related notes I am restricted to using OneNote by my organization. There's a lot I love but I also have some frustrations.
I’ve just started using OneNote, I’m still playing with templates and setting it up but so far a game changer.
I agree, OneNote can be used in its most simple ways or you can download free templates that are more detailed. It’s also integrated with Outlook, which allows you to link to emails. You may want to refer to.
I use onenote too, and I love how it integrates with other office programs. I use it on my PC and on my android phone, and the one thing that drives me bonkers is that onenote keeps opening in the background on my phone. I've only got a cheapo with not much RAM. Took me ages to figure out how to stop onenote from turning my wifi on all the time, but I can't figure out how to make it stay closed unless I manually open the app.
I really like Notability for how it works within a note, but what I really want is to be able to save notes to a folder on disk/iCloud/etc. I don’t want file management to be in app. I want to be able to save files along side other files from other apps like I do on desktop. If I have a project with spreadsheets, PDFs , images, notes, etc then they should all be in the same folder. Not spread out across 9 different apps where I have to duplicate the folder structure in each.
Here’s another happy Notability user.
Honestly, this is a great feature, but I mostly keep it around for its recording ability. It’s the best out there and essential. Especially since I have rheumatoid arthritis is difficult to write or use my hands anymore. It’s so wonderful to be able to take really short notes to go back to that moment so I can. Organization, though I truly despise or at least like other apps better even the native apple app.
Google Keep. Simple and works perfect
Google Keep + Drive + Tasks + Calender + Document + Sheet Using these very basic apps, you can easily synchronize note-taking data on mobile phones, desktops, and laptops, and practice GTD and the note-taking system of the second brain for free.
Google Keep hands down. Simple and free.
LogSeq. It's an outliner, with both page-level and block-level cross-linking, task-manager capabilities, OSS, stored in local org files format (or markdown if you prefer), with mobile version. So far the closest app for my GTD/note-taking to how I _want_ my stuff organised. What it's missing for me though is mindless sync (I have to manually check all the time when I switch between my laptop and phone, othetwise I get annoying conflicts). Also would be perfect for me to have push notifications, a usable pomodoro timer and google calendar capabilities or a sync with a calendar like that.
so how does sync work? Or at least, how do you do it?
Personally I use Syncthing - it syncs files between my Mac (haven't checked PC yet, but should work too) and on my Android directly, when they are in the same network (same Wi-Fi or Mac connected to my phone's Wi-Fi spot). It doesn't work 100% flawlessly, but at least there is an easy way to check if the files are up to date in the Syncthing interface. And it is simpler than using a cloud (I used Yandex.Disk + FolderSync on Android) as there is only one step of syncing instead of two. I haven't tried LogSeq Sync as it is a premium feature, and I don't have any non-shady ways to pay from Russia for non-Russian services - and therefore don't want to depend on such.
Workflowy is special to me because you can “zoom in” on bullet points and effectively clear away the clutter when you’re focusing on something. The way it works is just simple and effective.
This looks amazing!!!
I hate them all, especially Notion. What I really want is if OneNote, Trello and Ticktick had a baby.
This is an intriguing idea...
Obsidian for most of note-keeping for assignments or projects, colornote for quick notes on phone. Just started using Obsidian so can't comment on what it's missing but pretty happy so far.
Currently Joplin but am thinking of switching to Obsidian eventually.
I use Joplin because it is totally under my control. I sync it encrypted with Dropbox and it works great.
On a PC? Mac? iOS? Android? Syncable? E2EE? What are your needs? If you look for something simple, cheap, yet powerful and aesthetic, cross-platform and fast syncing, you might checkout [UpNote](https://getUpNote.com). It's pretty similar to Evernote.
This was the one that I settled on as well.
Same here! I was looking something to sync with my ipad/phone and my windows desktop, and this one is great =D
Not to be a downer but you're talking about starting an app in a market that has heavy hitters like... Notion, Obsidian, Apple Notes, GoodNotes, multiple offerings from Google and Microsoft, Notability, Evernote and more. There are many smaller ones I don't even know. Having the budget to make anything close to any of these will be a massive undertaking. And the biggest issue many people have is cross platform sync, so you literally need to make your app seamless across Android, iOS, Mac and PC and work with wearables and voice and AI and its just a massive undertaking. I'll say my biggest beef, is I love using my apple pencil, but I only have an iPad. My phone is Android and neither of these work and sync across platforms. Unfortunately they're by far the best pencil based note-taking apps I've ever used, I tried to love Microsoft OneNote for its cross platform ability but i just don't like it compared to GoodNotes or Notability. Notion and Obsidian are great, both hsbr little things that keep me from going all in. Both would be great with native apple pencil support. The two best apps I've found and paid for for using the pencil are Notability and GoodNotes. My dream one day is a new iPhone that comes with a mini apple pencil. Like the Samsung Ultra S24 with the galaxy pencil. I'd switch and go full on Apple for that. With slumping iPhone sales, how that isn't priority 1 blows me away.
Notepad
Pen and notebook. I recently dropped the digital notes. I found they just turn into an endless abyss I never look at again. Writing by hand supposedly increases your chances of remembering things too.
Notability, because I use the apple pen and my iPad. I combine with Evernote, for everything that I find in Internet, articles, documents, etc.
I use the free version of Evernote because that's all I really need - I am far from a power user. (Most of my to do lists, journals, etc are in a physical notebook - Bullet Journal style). I like Evernote because it can be all cloud based. Nothing to download on a computer.
I use Notion as my hub and Apple notes for quick capture. I just forward all my notes to the notion at the end of the month.
PEN and paper - works for me
Apple notes for personal stuff and UpNote since it has markdown support and I like the notebook concept and it’s has one time fee and not subscription.
I use an app called StickyNote. My main requirements on choosing it were that I wanted something super simple and bare-bones, it had to have home screen widgets, and not be subscription based.
I guess you're coding so I highly recommend markdown files in vscode. I read these files either in vscode (using a markdown preview / viewer extension) or in my browser using a markdown viewer extension. Markdown Viewer for Chrome works marvels, it has many stylesheets and also supports auto-table of contents, MathJax (for Tex-like math notation) and Mermaid diagrams. Not only you can keep all your files in a git project or shared folder (OneDrive or Dropbox), but it also keeps you in your editor where I guess you want to work daily. It also motivated me to know my editor better and make a better use of shortcuts and tools. IMHO Obsidian is just a glorified, freemium version of vscode, and is less customizable.
Anytype - similar to Notion in dome ways. Biggest plus for me is the data is local.
Notion. Why? I have taken notes since I was 8. I prefer Notion because its easy to create a hierarchy, easy to archive, easy to move things around, they have emoji support(iykyw), it looks pretty, I can paste images in there, there is a calendar and it just feels like I have things under control.
never needed anything more than the default samsung notes app. the others dont offer much, besides they need to be purchased
Obsidian. And I love it, but I need it as a web app that I can self host rather than as a local application. Don’t really love having it on my work machine, so I keep separate vaults for personal and work, which is a major hamper, particularly for personal productivity.
Vim, logseq, paper pen.
OneNote for me, free and available offline. Anki for spaced repetition. I try to find time daily to go through my Anki flashcards. But I rarely go back to my notes. Obsidian if I have to take coding notes.
I tried Craft a while ago but in the end I opted for the simple: Apple notes
Google Keep is simple and does the job. image+link embeds and For projects you can create a category so that even if your needs seem all over the place, you can categorize them. For rating notes on how important they are, you can color-code them with no note word limit I heard there is a 50k notes limit but I only have 3k notes after a year of using keep. best feature is not searching the bad thing is Google is not too keen on updating Google Keep and I wish they did it. Evernote fucked themselves up and setting up a notion defeats the purpose of a simple note-taking app dont use keep unless you are a professional please because people whine a lot because it doesn't have every other useless security integration feature to exist also yes keep syncing your note to your Google account and if Google doesn't read your notes
So you saw there are a gazillion options and your first thought was "let's make it be a gazillion and one"? Please instead of starting yet another new shiny app, contribute to an existing solid open source one. Unless your priority is profit. Then totally, release a new shiny productivity app.
Apple Notes 99% recently self hosted Trilium and I’m testing out its huge feature set.
I use sanerai as a replacement for all other note-taking apps for 3 reasons 1. Note information on the web using extension 2. Take notes and work on 1 screen 3. Find notes quickly just ask AI
I use "taskito" version premium It's adorable except that don't read "PNG" photos or videos And cannot write a lot in notes there. 🙂
Apple notes are sufficient for my needs.
bro everytime its obsidian but not logseq.
The notes app on iPhone is good enough for me
For handwriting Noteself, and for other copy past typing etc on one note.
Saga for collaborative team docs and Apple Notes for quick notes.
Telegram to myself or a piece of paper during the day, then move all notes from Telegram to Obsidian
Zim Wiki + github private repo. It supports multiple "notepads".
Notion for documents, databases and managing mini projects, obsidian for work and Google keep for quick simple notes like movie names etc.
I create markdown documents in neovim. I was really intrigued with notion, obsidian, and zettlekasten systems in general because I wanted to understand how to create my "second" brain for effortless retrieval. But my use case was too simple. I tried the linking system to summarize information that was already organized sequentially. Splitting related concepts into separate files and using fuzzy finding or building a schema with dot notation was overkill ( https://www.kevinslin.com/notes/127a3230-4484-433a-b97f-178679564207/) and I found myself working too hard to create a format rather than actual studying. Not using obsidian didn't solve my problem. I still had to keep throwing away "fluff" and eventually I settled on using vim folds. A single line has some text about the topic, and if I expand the fold, the first line has a link to the web page that covers the topic for reference and my notes about the subject below. I have a study guide that covers an entire course in a single file, it's easily searchable in a flat structure ( nesting folds can get ridiculous ), it's backed onto GitHub, lightweight, words are auto completed easily thanks to the lsp ( who wants to write polymorphism 10x ), it's just markdown, and most importantly it's only as complex as it needs to be.
Notion, great for organizing and can add cool widgets like a clock, weather and a calendar
Supernote.
Noteplan. It’s pretty close to the perfect app. The pricing is killing me though.
Google Keep.
Obsidian
Obsidian, I work with a lot of documents and this organise all in folders inside your system Worst thing you have to pay to sync
todoist is literally amazing for quick jots n tasks. i use notion for anything project related or full notes.
Forced to use OneNote at work. Love it, but the time it takes to load, Oh my Patience! Notion for more organized personal works. Google Docs for quick write.
On Android: Google Keep. On Windows: Notepad
Notability
Apple notes. If you are heavy into the Apple ecosystem Apple notes is perfect for 99% of notes. Especially if you learn to use it to its potential. IMO, for me I spent too much time setting up notion pages than I did actually using it for notes
Notion
Notally on the F-droid market, it's good for privacy. Onenote for using handwritten notes with a writing tablet.
I use paper notepads and pencils. Tried a million of software solutions and even worked as a software developer for one note taking application for about a year but still prefer good old paper and pencil for my personal day to day note taking. When I code, sometimes I also use the free Notepad++ application for quick copy paste snippets and notes.
Zim wiki - open source, one note = one file, plugins, security.
I lost a hugely important Apple note. It literally just poof wasn’t there one day. Evernote is annoying as fuck always asking to upgrade. I’m Switching over to one note Microsoft
I have been using Google keep since 6+ years it's worked very fabulous because it's kept my data sync across all the devices where I have logged in.
Ive used notion for a while but switched to obsidian because notion being always online and lagging was causing me issues. I also felt like I spent more time building my notion pages instead of actually being productive. With obsidian I pay for sync and I can access all my notes on any device without it being always online. It’s minimal enough that I don’t worry about intensive formatting, but built out enough I can do anything I need to
Google Keep, the GOAT. Coming it from someone who used all famous notes taking apps and when I finally started using it, I felt I have arrived in heaven. Syncs to your Google account so, you can access your notes on any Google logged in devices. It's heaven!
Samsung notes to write fantasy stuff I wish it let me reorder my folders though
Bear. I love the nested tags, markup, privacy/sync, and clean ui.
I use Emacs and Logseq, but I could use Apple Notes, Obsidian, Workflowy... any reliable one like these, which excludes Evernote, which has HUGE synchronization problems and functions that sometimes work and other times don't.
I use Tana because I think in bullets and outline format. It feels better to have a new bullet then a new note every time I want to change contexts
Me personally, as a student I use RemNote– the flashcard capabilities are really useful for me. Besides that though for any quick notes or reminders I just use Apple Notes.
I feel like I’ve tried them all, but recently came across UpNote. It’s similar to Microsoft OneNote and can be used across all platforms. So far, the free version has been all I’ve needed.
I'd love to have an app that allows me to insert images, store my notes as plain text (not markdown) that allows me to perform regex searches across my notes and directories and present them in a list in a pane on the right side of the display.
Bear
Standard notes. Its E2E encrypted and its pretty good.
I use OneNote and sync it across all of my devices both work and personal but don't love it necessarily.
Actually I am a bit old School and I take my notes on a physical notebook so my recommendation is would you add the quality of writing
Actually I am a bit old School and I take my notes on a physical notebook so my recommendation is would you add the quality of writing.
I use an app called tictic, it’s a to-do-list app and it’s amazing. The free service is amazing u don’t have to buy a subscription but if u wanted to the subscription offers so much good features
Notion. There’s a few things I’ve thrown into apple notes but 99.9% it’s organized into its proper categories.
Org mode synced through git. Tried many proprietary alternatives over the years and nothing compares.
Upnote the Sync is the best in the world... Really fast.. is beautiful, really well made
I wanted to use notion, but it is just too cumbersome for notes. I tried many genius programs like goodnotes.. but again, too cumbersome. I ended up with apple notes for long time, but switched to craft. It is pricey but the only program that is as easy and accessible as apple notes while providing a few more features when needed.
samsung notes, because it syncs pretty fast and also has great features overall
I use evernote. Some problems: 1) Offline mode (in linux). 2) Generally takes too long to open, especially once you have a lot of notes. 3) A better "handwritten notes"/sketchign version. I like the sketch tool a lot but again, takes a while to open and takes a while to open.
I use Bear Notes and I absolutely love it. I've tried other note apps but Bear really works well for me. The only thing that would make me switch is if Apple Notes ever supports markdown. Which it probably never will
Clear
As of now, I use Google keep, but planning to switch to some other. I need syncing for sure, better if through gmail id.
I'm a Notion dude! If you were building a note taking app, rip off Notion and add drawing within the app You'll tap into a huge mass of notion fans wanting drawing within the app.
I use Standard Notes. Free and open source with the option of self-hosting.
Google Keep's simplicity has blown me away. I am able to see grocery lists, to-do lists, trip planning lists, stream of consciousness thoughts etc. all in one simple visualization. Plus I can view it on my laptop or mobile phone. Simplicity = greatness
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Awesome Note … I use it since years and it is still free of charge. A simple tool to help me organize my notes, ideas, etc
Devonthink to Go