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Joplin is an open source note-taking app

joplinapp.org

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Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#61

Post by theshrike79 »

moneywoes wrote: post #33
theshrike79 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went from Notion and Joplin to Obsidian mostly because Obsidian stores stuff as regular files on my filesystem and I can easily interact with them with external programs and scripts. Joplin, while being open source itself, has a "proprietary"[1] storage format I can't be arsed to figure out how to interact with. [1] Meaning non-standard in this case, Joplin is the only software using Joplin's storage method

is there anything with a lightweight learning curve akin to Obsidian that uses a accessible format?

Any text editor with markdown support should work. Just VS Code with a Markdown viewer is a decent replacement.

You don't _need_ all of the fancy plugins that Obsidian has, but some of them are genuinely useful.

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#62

Post by vunderba »

nyreed wrote: post #6

My problem with Joplin is that on my M1 Macbook pro it really shows how much of an Electron app it really is, in the worst ways. Extreme memory use and UI lag for an application which displays text. That said, aside from performance it's quite satisfying to use. It's very simple and does its job well. I recently migrated to Obsidian and although the learning curve is steeper, I'm quite happy with the results.

yeah, it goes to show you that Electron based apps can be done in a reasonably performant way but it does require extra care/attention as Obsidian is an electron app as well.

I have about 13,000 notes (with embedded media PNGs, MP4s, etc) across 50 folders/subfolders on my Mac M1 and searching across all notes in Obsidian is for all intents and purposes instantaneous (less than a second).

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#64

Post by theshrike79 »

chaseha wrote: post #19

Would appreciate any folks here who have tried both Obsidian and Joplin to summarize the key differentiators for them and which one they ended up on. (on x platform, Windows/iOS use case here, but just post your needs) I tried to move to Obsidian from Evernote after they raised the subscription price but wasn't able to onboard successfully - Obsidian seemed powerful but was too customizable for me, had to get back to…

I tried both, my Joplin experience is a few years ago so grain of salt and all.

Joplin is open source, doesn't really have a plugin ecosystem, has a custom storage format for its data and is _really_ easy and reliable to sync with WebDav (I had mine set up with Fastmail's webdav while sipping my morning coffee)

Obsidian (my current system for going on 2 years) on the other hand is the closest I've gotten to org-mode with a modern tool, with all the pluses and minuses.

The plugin ecosystem is completely crazy, you can find a plugin for pretty much everything. And you'll lose days of actual work progress bikeshedding the plugin system =)

Data is stored as regular standard files (Canvases are the exception, but there really isn't a standard for stuff like that).

Syncing with third party tools is ... workable if you don't switch platforms quickly - basically if you make a note on your phone and immediately switch to desktop, the note might appear or might not, depends on the phase of the moon. iCloud takes a while to sync and sometimes just freezes, works fine if you let it work. Dropbox, OneDrive etc aren't officially supported and tend to have conflicts.

I actually ended up paying for their sync service and it Just Works - even though it's not the cheapest option, but _for_me_ it's worth it because I regularly use multiple devices in short succession on the same notes.

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#65

Post by coldblues »

rubymamis wrote: post #55
wkat4242 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah too bad, I do need a rich text notes app (and no markdown, I hate markdown, under the hood it's fine but I don't want to deal with it :) ). Also hate kanban and agile methodology by the way ;) Luckily I'm not a dev otherwise I would have to work with all of those lol. But perhaps you could do the monetisation via the sync service only and make the app open source :) That would be great, at least for me so I could…

Is it a deal breaker for you that the app isn't open source? What if I create binaries for FreeBSD/your distro and there's no telemetry/option to disable connecting to the internet (even for updates)?

I support your app so much I would pay a monthly fee instead of a one-time purchase. My notes are as valuable as my life. I don't mind the app being proprietary if it gets the love it deserves. If you can accomplish the goals you set out, like providing good functionality and performance, then I'm cheering you on. My needs are very basic, just the minimum to accomplish Zettelkasten.

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#66

Post by [deleted] »

Liquix wrote: post #27
nyreed wrote: post #6

My problem with Joplin is that on my M1 Macbook pro it really shows how much of an Electron app it really is, in the worst ways. Extreme memory use and UI lag for an application which displays text. That said, aside from performance it's quite satisfying to use. It's very simple and does its job well. I recently migrated to Obsidian and although the learning curve is steeper, I'm quite happy with the results.

Does Obsidian feature a way to seamlessly sync between devices that doesn't rely on a propreitary service or external tool (Syncthing)?

[deleted]

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#68

Post by suprjami »

vunderba wrote: post #58

Joplin is a decent open-source note app but I absolutely hate the way that they structure your notes. If you have thousands of notes in a folder ~/my_notes ~/my_notes/work ~/my_notes/music etc. Joplin takes them and stores the notes internally as a SQLite table with UUID named markdown files. It makes it very difficult to use bash tools, finding them, other IDEs, etc to work with your files after Joplin has ingested…

This is the reason I don't use Joplin either.

Obsidian can handle an existing file structure.

I use Vim and folder sync to Nextcloud.

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#69

Post by adhamsalama »

bccdee wrote: post #56
refactorguy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time I see a post about a note-taking app, Obsidian is mentioned in the comments. I don't know if the app is really good, or if those are just paid comments. At this point I'm not even surprised anymore, especially when conversations always end with a mention of Obsidian Sync.

It's the biggest & most popular app in the note-taking space. It's closed-source, which I don't love, and I've tried to look for alternatives, but there just isn't anything else that's as good as Obsidian. In a situation like that, you don't need to pay people to talk about your product. People will evangelize it on their own.

Try SiYuan Note.

Re: Joplin is an open source note-taking app

#70

Post by tasuki »

Liquix wrote: post #27
nyreed wrote: post #6

My problem with Joplin is that on my M1 Macbook pro it really shows how much of an Electron app it really is, in the worst ways. Extreme memory use and UI lag for an application which displays text. That said, aside from performance it's quite satisfying to use. It's very simple and does its job well. I recently migrated to Obsidian and although the learning curve is steeper, I'm quite happy with the results.

Does Obsidian feature a way to seamlessly sync between devices that doesn't rely on a propreitary service or external tool (Syncthing)?

Hmm, why not do one thing and do it well? Is there much benefit for each and every app to reimplement its own seamless sync?
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