But outline is opensource?
Actually some Outline feature aren't, which could be quite limiting when deployed in a large organization or institution
Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
261–270 of 484 posts
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#262Outline is also open source (or at least “source available”): https://github.com/outline/outline
All features aren't available in the community edition …
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't thought about this a ton - but am I wrong that it sounds crazy and inefficient for the government to essentially compete with private industry? It feels like a colliding of worlds and a cannibalization that doesn't make sense to me. Like - if the government launched a messaging app competitive with WhatsApp and it drew users away from WhatsApp and it had better encryption ... Would that actually be better f…
> if the government launched a messaging app competitive with WhatsApp Done, but for public workers. https://tchap.beta.gouv.fr These tools are not yet for citizens, but for workers.
Tchap is based on Matrix for those who wonder and can't read french
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#264Hey. A few developers from the team are on HN and will be happy to answer any questions here! We also made a small scratchpad you can use to test collaboration features, if it doesn't get too flooded :) https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/docs/a3f0becc-f2b7-45be-a5e5-...
What led to the choice of using Blocknote over other editor packages? Would love to read about the decision making and comparisons between all the editors you considered. Also interested in any other write ups about choosing packages (ex: I see you using hocuspocus which I think is from another editor - TipTap) and why you landed on your particular tech stack.
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#265I'm intrigued by the decision to call it "Docs". In any other circumstance it would be a clear trademark infringement on Google Docs. It's literally the same product with the same name, it has an extremely similar logo and almost exactly the same typeface in its logo. But since this is a government project between France and Germany, maybe governments are allowed to ignore trademarks? Or Google wants to stay on their…
isn't "Google Docs" the trademark https://about.google/brand-resource-center/trademark-list/ ?
That doesn't matter. It's about similarity and consumer confusion.
E.g. you can't launch an ice cream brand called "Haagen" or called "Dazs", even though the trademark is for "Haagen-Dazs".
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google Docs isn’t near the same as Notion. Not even close. Notion treats information as a repository and keeps things indexed, searchable, and has some ways to automatically sort things, has ability to seamlessly create different types of documents and weave them together and so much more that Docs lack. Docs doesn’t even have native markdown support last I checked
You can use Markdown in Google Docs, but it automatically gets converted to rich text. (When you copy/paste rich text out of Google Docs, there's also a "Copy as Markdown" option, but it'll default to a particular Markdown syntax that may not be the one you refer.)
Even conceding markdown support it still lacks the organization and document flexibility of notion
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Notion is not an example of delightful software and it is very much one of the most reproducible apps ever. I don't know how they managed to make it fashionable amongst startups, but it's certainly not because it's an innovative product.
it is very much one of the most reproducible apps ever Would love to move to an alternative that also works in the browser, got any suggestions? I haven't found one that does what Notion does. I genuinely want to get off their AI training grounds but cannot. Your comment reeks of condescension because you are not the target user.
Acknowledging you want a web-app browser based alternative and this won’t answer your question, feel free to ignore.
But as for general notion alternatives, and actually if you prefer to go in the other direction away from web based—Hands down would recommend Obsidian.md above any other open source alternative.
While it's not 100% "batteries included" like proprietary apps (though this gap has narrowed considerably), Obsidian truly shines if you're even slightly inclined toward customization. It's "hackable to the core" — you can build practically anything on top of it, which satisfies open source purists. Yet for practical users not looking to build their own software, Obsidian still punches above its weight — it's highly functional and polished out of the box, requiring zero setup to be immediately productive.
The integrated community plugins library lets you extend vanilla Obsidian to match most proprietary software, including Notion's "databases" functionality (arguably Notion's best feature), LLM integration, and much more. Since these plugins are themselves open source, they too can be customized beyond their original design. It's the perfect blend of freedom with valuable functionality either built-in or one click away.
What initially drove me from Notion to Obsidian wasn't the customization aspect, but the need for local storage and non-cloud syncing for sensitive data. It's egregious that Notion still doesn't support this outside their Enterprise license. I almost overlooked this by simply not using Notion for sensitive data, but the final straw came when I lost access during Notion's service outages. Even though these were infrequent and brief, being unable to access my data when needed was unacceptable. Arguing with devs about local storage and offline functionality only to face that situation made me realize how absurd it was that Notion doesn't even provide a cached version when offline. Without internet, Notion is essentially a brick — your data exists somewhere in the aether, just not on your device. That's bananas.
After switching to Obsidian and solving the local storage "problem" in 30 seconds, I gradually discovered more functionality and have since customized it as my central organization and research tool. Couldn't recommend it more highly.
I'll stop my rant now — Obsidian speaks for itself and doesn't need my endorsement, just as Notion's shortcomings are equally well-established.
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess that's the "problem" with generic product names. There's also Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar etc. - Docs is not different than that.
"Docs" isn't that generic. It's not even a word in the dictionary. It's the plural of an abbreviation. Nobody called a word processor "Docs" before Google did. If you say "open Calendar", I don't know if you mean Apple or Google or Microsoft. If you say "open Docs", I know it's Google and only Google. This is no different than if the project called itself "Word", which would be equally confusing with Microsoft. Neith…
Docs and Word are both generic words that need a qualification like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Otherwise they could be Open Docs or Open Word (not sure if that exists, maybe Libre Word?).
Same with Books. It could be Google Books, Facebook, or Open Books.
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
We use Mattermost at work, and apart from the mobile app being a bit shit, and search being kind of useless, it's easily as good as Slack. In some ways it's better, e.g. you can use proper Markdown in messages instead of Slack's Mrkdwn abomination that doesn't even allow links. I wish they would improve search though; it's kind of a critical feature in a company.
? I put Slack into non-rich-text-editor mode and use standard markdown link syntax dozens of times a day
Well maybe they've added that in the past 2 years but certainly 2 years ago you could only add links using rich text mode.
Re: Docs – Open source alternative to Notion or Outline
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
adding to this, it seems to me like most of the projects are yet to be open sourced. the github currently has docs and their video conferencing tool (which also looks great): https://github.com/suitenumerique
All the projects are already open sourced actually, but admittedly all don't have documentation as good as docs or meet. Still a wip :)
Cool! Are they under a different GitHub org? I couldn't find grist or tchap