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Notion releases offline mode

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21–30 of 189 posts

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#21

I'm a Notion fan but the lack of a native Linux app has me shopping for a replacement. Obsidian seems, from what I've seen, focused on the ability to graph notes, which I don't really care about. I want note-taking, list-making, and markdown friendly. I do want to keep Notion's ability to work in a browser and to maintain a single, accessible store of my notes. What are my options?

if you’re open to something outside the browser, anytype runs natively on linux. local-first and e2e encrypted by default. you can sync via p2p or through backup nodes. markdown, lists, note-taking all covered - just no browser version yet

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#22

I'm a Notion fan but the lack of a native Linux app has me shopping for a replacement. Obsidian seems, from what I've seen, focused on the ability to graph notes, which I don't really care about. I want note-taking, list-making, and markdown friendly. I do want to keep Notion's ability to work in a browser and to maintain a single, accessible store of my notes. What are my options?

Obsidian's plug-in ecosystem is fantastic. I've used Obsidian for three years as a replacement for Notion, and I have never used the Graph mode. My Obsidian plugins enable automatic task synchronization with TickTick (where I manage my tasks) and allow me to set up features like templates. I strongly recommend giving it a spin.

The only downside for me is the inability to use it from a web browser. This isn't a major issue for my workflows.

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#23

I'm a Notion fan but the lack of a native Linux app has me shopping for a replacement. Obsidian seems, from what I've seen, focused on the ability to graph notes, which I don't really care about. I want note-taking, list-making, and markdown friendly. I do want to keep Notion's ability to work in a browser and to maintain a single, accessible store of my notes. What are my options?

Obsidian has all of that and more if you go for some of the advanced extensions. It's not about "graphing notes" as much as connecting a note to another. It's really not that different from inserting a page into the text of another page in Notion

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#24

I was a big Notion fan for years and am now solidly in the Obsidian camp. Speed and local-first was originally the main differentiator, but over time Steph Ango's "file over app" philosophy has become my favorite feature. Yesterday I used Claude Code to automate some Obsidian cleanup and it was trivial because everything's just a file.

You are not their current market, at all (individual vs team use) and your solution is unsuitable for theirs

People using their free offering for personal use is a critical part of Notion's sales pipeline. It's a hell of a lot easier to sell a piece of software to a company when all it's internal users have already trained themselves how to use it in their personal time. Those users are probably the ones generating the enterprise sales lead in the first place

See also: Google Docs

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not their current market, at all (individual vs team use) and your solution is unsuitable for theirs

People using their free offering for personal use is a critical part of Notion's sales pipeline. It's a hell of a lot easier to sell a piece of software to a company when all it's internal users have already trained themselves how to use it in their personal time. Those users are probably the ones generating the enterprise sales lead in the first place See also: Google Docs

Yes but users who are satisfied by an alternative (Obsidian) which can't be used with teams aren't their audience. If the user wanted to introduce the tool to their team, they wouldn't be satisfied with Obsidian. Google Docs is one link share away from team-sharing. Obsidian requires ditching Obsidian to share the practice with your team.

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#26
post #8

I guess for a lot of users like myself using Notion ship has sailed. Most of them have moved to Obsidian, with the new database feature of Obsidian, and it being free, I do not see why users would choose Notion over Obsidian.

Are they comparable tools in a team context? The ease of linking documents to people and collaborating? Seems like solo, sure. But in a group.. Obsidian doesn't replace Notion at all.

[deleted]

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#27
post #7

I guess for a lot of users like myself using Notion ship has sailed. Most of them have moved to Obsidian, with the new database feature of Obsidian, and it being free, I do not see why users would choose Notion over Obsidian.

I've never heard of companies using Obsidian. Notion isn't really marketed or suitable for individuals (even if their free plan says otherwise).

It is suitable for individuals, I used it for a couple years and was very happy with it. I only decided to move on because I wanted a local database that I could mine as my personal knowledge base.

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#28
Although I’m sure implementing this into a big codebase is a technical headache I hope this encourages other big Electron apps like Figma (or even Tana, a direct competitor) to support an offline mode of sorts.

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#29
post #8

I guess for a lot of users like myself using Notion ship has sailed. Most of them have moved to Obsidian, with the new database feature of Obsidian, and it being free, I do not see why users would choose Notion over Obsidian.

Are they comparable tools in a team context? The ease of linking documents to people and collaborating? Seems like solo, sure. But in a group.. Obsidian doesn't replace Notion at all.

obsidian’s great for solo use, but for team collaboration, anytype is closer to notion-built-in group sync, permissions, and offline support. you don’t need plugins or external services for multi-user editing; it just works across devices

Re: Notion releases offline mode

#30

I'm a Notion fan but the lack of a native Linux app has me shopping for a replacement. Obsidian seems, from what I've seen, focused on the ability to graph notes, which I don't really care about. I want note-taking, list-making, and markdown friendly. I do want to keep Notion's ability to work in a browser and to maintain a single, accessible store of my notes. What are my options?

I made the jump to AFFiNe (https://affine.pro/) a few months ago and have really liked using it. I am able to self host and have found it to be a _nearly_ 1:1 replacement for Notion. Affine's database implementation isn't nearly as nice though - but they are workable and they are improving.

My biggest gripe is that the OSS project is very oriented around a hosted product rather than the self hosted - so things like AI configuration is tricky at best and ive had to manually manipulate my account in the db to remove "free" user limitations.

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