It was time to ditch Evernote YEARS ago. Obsidian is basically the best alternative.
this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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At 8$/month for sync between devices I hope it has some qualities..
I've been using obsidian-livesync for a couple months now. Works great cross-platform since it runs directly out of my Vault and doesn't cost $8/mo. Mine is running on fly.io right now but I may eventually move it to my own machine. https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync/
I can't help feeling like Obsidian really missed the mark on their pricing here for hobbyist & home users. I can't justify paying substantially more than something like iCloud or Google Drive storage when I'm using Obsidian to just sync some text and a few documentation images. Something like $1-2/mo would have been an instant buy for me, but at $8 it was worth my time to investigate other ways of syncing.
Don’t tell them that. I’ve been saying the same thing for ages and I get slammed by their community for it.
I don’t get it. Imas you say it’s really missed the mark on pricing. I’d gladly pay for a sync option. But 8€\month? Eff offfff. I have like 500MB of data. I know that’s not everyone’s case but. Is there not some tier? Cripes
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It's completely local if you want, and you absolutely don't need to pay money for syncing. The entire app is absolutely free and fully functional. If you want free syncing you can either use iCloud, or else the RemotelySave plugin with something like Syncthing or Duplicati.
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What about logseq?
Obsidian is a godsend. The sheer number of plugins gives you basically anything you could want.
It not being open-source is pretty much my only complaint lol
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I love Joplin, https://joplinapp.org/
Open source, encryption, features rich, sync across devices, what's not to like?
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I’ve switched to Joplin which I sync with my Nextcloud server.
OneNote is also good, if you’re already in the Microsoft ecosystem.
If you're in the MS ecosystem then OneDrive supports application syncing as a thing and so does Joplin including on its mobile clients. It's basically free seemless cloud syncing once you set it up.
You're also giving all of your data over to Microsoft, including to be scanned and fed into their AI models.
That's a trade-off that many won't mind making, but everyone should informed of before making their decision.
Well Joplin support encryption. I sync with Dropbox and have it all encrypted.
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I boost Joplin on here every chance I get, so please allow me to do so again now! I run it with my own sync server and a small userbase of about 6 people on a cheap VPS. I could not be happier; between the webclipper, sharing, encryption, embedding of pdfs, photos, even mp4s, ease of selfhosting, it’s an amazing project! It’s been (knock on wood) rock solid!
Sounds like it is a bit advanced and technical for me...all I want is something I can make a list on android and my partner can edit it on iOS. Can it do that?
Yeah, it can do that. There are Android and iOS apps (as well as desktop). It has list creation in one click. General notes are technically formatted in markdown behind the scenes, and some users like to write the notes directly in markdown, but Joplin's default view is a "rich text editor" mode which hides all that stuff away and uses familiar word processor type controls.
Depending on your chosen cloud host (you can pick any you like) it can sometimes be a little fiddly to do the initial setup, but I think the default "Joplin Cloud" option is pretty straightforward.
I use Joplin, and can heartily recommend it, although there are plenty of alternative options out there too.
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Lots of mentions for Obsidian. I'll throw in my favorite for the past few years that's similar: Logseq! Check it out!
They list Notion, but IMO Obsidian is the better path. Lack of offline access to data is a big risk to using Notion, and what made me switch to Obsidian after being bit by internet access issues keeping me from being able to use my notes during a critical meeting. Hard no for Notion ever since.
I use Obsidian for a mind map but Notion for project/life management.
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I really love Obsidian. It is a perfect fit for my needs. I just hope they don't do the creeping subscription bullshit like Evernote did. The $96 a year is reasonable for those who need it (I don't need it).
Crossing my fingers that the usual greed doesn't give them brain rot. I probably should have gone with Joplin, but I'm too invested in Obsidian at this point (and very happy with it). I guess if they do go over to the Dark Side, I could freeze it at the last good release for a while then switch.
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Who is still using Evernote in 2023? Everyone I know is using either Notion or Google Keep.
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Simplenote is also great and cross platform.
I was pretty happy with EverNote until it started to feel like they were ransoming my content against sudden price hikes and enshittifying reductions in basic function Fk those guys
I'm giving Obsidian a try and I'm liking it, but I still use freebie Notion for a lot of work things.
I do ~6-12 month contracts, and have found that publishing notion pages is a really easy way to share stuff quickly with the team and keep it live-update-able by all parties. That feature suits some fast-paced environment needs.
I never really used evernote tho. I think i first tried it years ago before they allowed dark mode, so it automatically failed.
My only real complaint with Obsidian is the lack of cloud service functionality. I understand why, (because it would directly compete with their paid cloud service) but it’s just another subscription to pay. I’d happily pay a one-time fee to be able to use my own cloud service like Google Drive, OneDrive, or iCloud. But everything is Software as a Service these days, so lifetime purchases are getting more and more rare.
If you really want, you can use almost any cloud-based solution that allows you to sync folders, with some caveats.
I use Obsidian with my Google Drive; it took me about 5 minutes to set up, and it works like a charm now. However, you need to set it up on every device you plan on using for synchronization. Also, you cannot work on the same document on two devices simultaneously. Otherwise, it works as you'd expect.
It's definitely messier than the Obsidian cloud, but for my needs, syncing it via Google Drive is more than enough.
Unless I misunderstood “cloud service functionality”, an Obsidian vault can be placed almost anywhere on the file system. For instance, a remote/WebDAV drive or even the Dropbox/iCloud Drive/Google Drive directory.
Migrating is as easy as moving the vault directory from one location to another, and pointing Obsidian to it.
As always, on iOS, there are some caveats as it lacks a traditional file system. So, the Obsidian app cannot access the vault directory on, say your Dropbox. But there are workarounds for it, like hosting the vault on a remote Git repository - which is what I ended up doing. Of course, this is a non-issue on Android.
Obsidian has a help page that goes in detail about what I just said.
As for the Git repository workaround, I referred to this article to arrive at my current workflow.
As an aside, I would like to touch upon my experience with using the inbuilt sync on apps like Agenda and Joplin - both offering syncing using iCloud and Dropbox while the latter offering a whole lot more. It is a flaky experience at best, wherein a significant number of notes never really sync between the devices. This forces me to use my phone to view a particular note while my computer for another. This is where the plain text file foundation for apps like Obsidian and Logseq wins me over.
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Don't go to Notability. They went full asshole at the top of this last semester. Changed the entire interface as people were starting their first week of class. They nuked features that made note taking for class nice. They clearly don't respect their users and will most likely do the same thing again.
I think I'm a bit of a dinosaur, but I've been making all of my notes in Zim for over 10 years. It's not much to look at but I find the hierarchical wiki structure easy to navigate, and most of the functionality (todo lists, equations, version control integration, etc) is implemented by simple plugins.
in my opinion, a lot of these programs are too complicated - I tried Joplin for a while but I ended up spending more time organising my notes than I did making them.
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What happened to Evermote? 😂 I used it so much when u was in uni, so sad
They also started annoying the users on every load with "deals" to buy their paid version. And they do that shitty thing where they switch the intuitive nature of the yes and no buttons.
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This dumbass article is about 8 years too late. I ditched it back when they cancelled all free accounts and deleted everyone data who didn’t pay. Fuck Evernote
Ummm... I'm pretty sure I pay zero and just logged in yesterday after like a year.
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I use the marksman language server with my neovim configuration. It makes a navigable wiki-ish system ^.^, especially when you set it up with completion.wiki.style = "file-path-stem" in the .marksman.toml ( see: here for what that does.
This, plus syncthing or git, works for syncing ^.^
I always felt that Evernote was a confusing mess line OneNote I would try to use it every couple years thinking it would different only to give up a little later and go back to Notepad++
Wait what? One is a note taking app. The other is a text editor...
Did I miss the implied /s?
Notepad++ works great for taking notes. Besides, it's open 24/7 anyway so dedicating a tab or two (or dozen lol) feels pretty natural.
I only use Joplin if I have some "very structured" notes about some topic, and while that is also open 24/7 np++ is always my go-to because "it just works" without having to care at all about formatting nor anything fancy.
Standardnotes and Notesnook also good as well and they provide web app
What most note taking apps ignore is OneNote's strong drawing tablet capabilities, but Obsidian is here to save the day with the Excalidraw plugin. In total it is not as user friendly as OneNote, but the data portability cannot be weighted in gold.
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I haven't looked into the alternatives much, but I've been using AnyType because of the decentralized sync.
This is why you don't buy in to subscriptions for every little thing.
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