this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Do you know any open source alternatives to Notion? I found a few FOSS apps, but they all lack most of Notion features

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Possibly Logseq fits your purposes.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)

It's not FOSS, but Obsidian operates on a folder of plain markdown files, so it's at least easy to try.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

IMO a folder of markdown files is the way. Interoperable with so many things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Totally agree. I’m moving away from Obsidian but I’ll never be thankful enough to that software for getting me used to local .md files. I find it just way way better than any other solution.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

This is what I use. Or if you don't need image/PDF embedding or mobile support then VimWiki is a similar solution that is FOSS.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But Foam is. It's roughly the same as obsidian and it really helps structure my work.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I never manage to get into foam coming from Obsidian, possibly because I use VSCode/Codium for coding, so it’s hard for my brain to adapt and appreciate all the pkm things (same reason Dendron didn’t stick either). Plus I’ll admit I’m getting used to the live preview thing. Sorry if I ask, do you use it for note taking or general work management?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I am using it as both. I try to adapt Zettelkasten with todos, inbox and a personal knowledgebase, but also try to manage my Meeting notes, Project information etc. I loved the idea of Obsidian, but wanted to use FOSS stuff, but damn, Obsidian is great and I always feel a little annoyed by Foam+VS Code because it constantly fucks up my tabs layout, closes the graph and, coming from Notion too, is not as fluent.

@[email protected] mentioned Anytype and I tried it this morning, but I cannot wrap my head around how to properly implement Zettelkasten and something like a folder structure so I think I'll drop it, even though I was really interestet.

A coworker gave me a tour of Obisian just now and the features it has make it hard to avoid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Coming back super later to this, and I agree with your sentiment. Thanks for explaining :) I tried Anytype but the fact that pages are not plain text files is bothering me (I think obsidian kind of spolied me). If you settle on obsidian, for project management in obsidian I tweaked this https://github.com/duoani/obsidian-gtd (not my repo, the js scripts need a small update iirc), which was what I was looking for in a project management system.

I am still waiting for https://silverbullet.md to mature a little bit more and I’ll try to switch to it (foss+obsidian like many useful features as core plugins)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Joplin I think, or Trillium but that one could be less user friendly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

This looks really nice. Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Report back if you get a chance to try it. I find the learning curve and is struggling to get a hang of it but I want to get a hang of it lol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

It's bit hard to wrap my head around it. I think I'll give joplin a try, if that doesn't work out then maybe I'll give anytype another go.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I tried it and somehow I cannot wrap my head around how this works. My head wants folder structure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I tried anytype and moved to logseq because in anytype I couldn't reorder blocks.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy is built to be an alternative to Notion. They jumped on the AI wagon as well and their website is more corporate-like that I remembered, but you might give it a shot :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

There's affine.pro too which seems similar

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

I have been looking for a while now. The closest I have ever been was Anytype, but it is not as user friendly or refined as Notion because it is still in active development.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

@Fitik
2 possible paths forward:

+ Dokuwiki with some plugins for templates and lists and tables. On a web server.

+ Org-mode and Org-roam (a looot more than Notion). Local.

Maybe TidlyWiki, but I don't know it personally.

How much do you need real-time collaboration?
:)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I don't need real time collaboration at all, but I would prefer synchronization between my devices

Thanks for suggestions!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

@Fitik
Then both mentioned options could work. They are different in the balance between simplicity (#dokuwiki is easier) and power (#org-mode has #emacs behind).
Both have huge ecosystems, great documentation, vibrant communities and are rock solid. Dokuwiki is accessible on a website (in the net or in your machine) and org-mode mostly on your machine but it is super easy to replicate or export for use in many devices.
I"ll happily expand if you choose any of those, :)