Technology

I'm sort of the opposite. I liked Joplin but found myself needing the features of Obsidian. I do know what you mean about Obsidian getting in the way. While it's easy to start using it, there is a bit of a learning curve to using it well. And it can be a little quirky-annoying at times.

I think that's one reason there are so many software offerings in this space. There's a wide range of preferences when it comes to features vs simplicity.

For me, Obsidian is just about perfect without any extensions, but I'm also glad it is extensible if you need them. The configurability and customization, while using standard markup, and keeping the vault storage sizes small were the major pros for me.

Some other products I've tried in this space were just too much for me. Huge save files, overdone UXs, and proprietary formats. Joplin and Obsidian were both a breath of fresh air when I found them.

I switched to Joplin after dumping the fully enshittified Evernote earlier this year. Joplin’s entry and reading interface is straight up terrible, and I sorely miss the auto-ocr search from Evernote, but it’s overall layout basic enough to be usable.

Logseq is the only note taking system that has clicked with me, by lowering the mental overhead at the time of adding notes. I just throw it in there without any considerations while still feeling like it's not going to get lost. Later I may revisit the day's journal and add tags or connect other information, move a block into its own page, etc.

In Logseq, everything is a nested list. This feels like a limitation, but I’ve been preferring it. The decision is made for you: you’re going to jot this information down as a list. So then you just start writing it.

Oh - this sounds interesting.

Whenever I needed to jot down any notes I've been finding myself just writing plain .txt files with bullet points, and trying tools like Obsidian or TiddlyWiki I always ended up being overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I could do (and with all the customization options) that I never got around to actually writing things down. I'm definitely gonna look into how Logseq works.

(Although I have to say, their website does look a bit "too hype-y" for my liking. IDK how to explain it, just a gut feeling. Still, at least it's FOSS so it can't be too bad)

In Logseq, everything is a nested list. This feels like a limitation, but I’ve been preferring it. The decision is made for you: you’re going to jot this information down as a list. So then you just start writing it.

I really appreciate you posting this. I'm a long-time Obsidian user, and an Evernote user before that, and I never "got" Logseq. I just couldn't understand what people saw in an app that didn't let you "write" anything. I've tried to start using Logseq so many times and just given up because the interface made no sense.

Thanks to your comment I finally get it! I prefer to be using something open-source, so I'm going to give Logseq another go, now that I finally understand it, and see how that approach feels.

my situation is very similar to yours; I was previously an obsidian user but then switched to logseq for everything. I really wonder why logseq website doesn't hype up the fact that it's an outliner, because imo that's what sets it apart from similar programs. I didn't even know what an outliner was until recently

Obsidian is reaching market criticality so I’m expecting enshitification any time now.

You could be right, but I'm not 100% sure of that. From the article:

Keeping the team small and spurning outside investment is Obsidian’s way of avoiding incentives that might lead the company astray.

If they can stick to that, they can avoid going downhill. The main driver for enshittification is big shareholders that want the company to keep growing -- shareholders don't care about stable profitability, they need growth for their ownership stake to increase in value. If Obsidian is profitable now and they're fine with just keeping it that way, they can make it work.

I use syncthing, it is great for folder syncthing between multiple devices and no "server" needed

Obsidian Livesync

Pros:

• bullet proof

• Simple

• FOSS

• Selfhosted

Cons:

• password/secrets manager nearly required to setup new devices

• fails to make my morning coffee

I just keep my vault in Dropbox and use Dropbox sync for Android to keep it working on my phone.

If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you can toss your vault into iCloud Drive. If you’re technically proficient (and brave) you can write a cron to sync into whichever service you want via a local machine.

In addition to iCloud, I have a one-way sync (rsync) which functions as a poor man’s backup to get all my files into Dropbox; lots of stern warnings from Obsidian not to use Dropbox.

Syncthing. Works really good for paying nothing.

Literally what I thought when I first saw the headline.

Oh boy. Weve all been there.

Stay hydrated.

Same for me. I got some plugins too, people say they're a must, but they have their own tutorials almost. But one day I'll try it

There's lots of alternate, free and open source syncing solutions. I use syncthing myself.

Like another person said, many ways to sync. I use Resilio personally and love it.

Joplin stores its files inside a database. Obsidian stores all notes as individual plaintext Markdown files.

In the first instance, that's clearly more future-proof and robust - your notes are immediately available in any application without a layer of abstraction. You can't have a single file corrupt and destroy all your notes.

I vastly prefer it for that reason. I want to know these notes are still going to work fine in 10 years, and be easily accessible.

I use Joplin for a simple notes app mostly for my phone but I do have it on my desktop and sync. What I do not use it for is my desktop notes collection which is a several thousand notes pages some quite big. I use Zim for that. It is a desktop Wiki.

I do not use Obsidian but it seems like knowledge base and linking is what people rave about. These are the ways in which I use Zim for example.

Better table editing than many other markdown editors, but I wouldn't call it very good for a note taking app.

There really isn't. I hunted for a while before I gave up and bought an android tablet for hand writing notes.

I'm a happy Notesnook user, here. And they have tables.