Choose your warrior:

I'm a happy Obsidian user. It's not open source but really good.

And with Obsidian I still own my files, which are just in markdown and can be read by literally any other program.
Same. Although I'd love a fully open source, non-electron alternative.
- I don't know about electron but I tried Logseq because Obsidians license didn't work for me. It's open source and markdown files too
Also now free for commercial use!
Seconded. I'm not terribly happy it's closed-source, but the team seems quite ethical in their approach to software development and user privacy, and for anyone not in the know about Obsidian, the big highlights that still make it worth it for me are:

Markdown formatted notes (standard format you can port across many different kinds of apps, especially useful as an exit strategy if Obsidian ever enshittifies)

Plugins & Themes (Add basically any arbitrary functionality or looks you need, from structured query languages to analyze your notes, to automatic image format converters)

Note Linking (being able to link your notes like so: [[Name of Note]] (shows as Name of Note in reading mode) so you can easily structure your knowledge, and build relationships between notes
I am a happy MediaWiki user and it's FOSS.
I'm also a big fan of Obsidian.

Shoutout to Logseq (AGPL licensed) https://logseq.com/

Found it was perfect for my ADHD.

What makes it different in regard to your ADHD?
- Unlike every other note app I’ve ever used, you don’t need to organize things manually or manage an organizational hierarchy (like folders, etc). That’s where I always fall over in other apps, eventually. Organization happens automatically in Logseq.
  
  It gives you a new, date-stamped journal entry everyday, and you jot down notes in that. You can link to other pages just by adding a hashtag or using 2 square brackets around some text. Each link/hashtag is automatically given its own page, and if you visit it, you’ll see all your mentions of this page, neatly organized in a chronological order by the date. So think about daily work on a project/goal, or anything around a specific topic, all of it is automatically organized for you.
  
  Under the hood, all the links form a graph and Logseq is backed by a graph database, so it visualizes this graph for you and gives you some powerful querying tools on top of it too.
May I ask how did it help you?
This looks absolutely amazing. It addresses a lot of the problems I have with traditional notebooks. I have often joked/lamented that my problem is not that my brain's library wants for books, but rather for shelves. This looks like a shelving system my brain might work with. Thank you, sincerely, for posting.

I chose Nextcloud Notes because I already have it anyway, and it's good enough for me.

Just a friendly reminder that if you use an external nextcloud, that it is most likely unencrypted. The recommendations in the post body (or my own, like using https://cryptpad.fr/) are probably a better choice if you are not self hosting nextcloud yourself.

However if you are self hosting it, it should be fine 👍 KIM these are just recommendations :)
- Jup, the main requirement for a notes app was that I was already selfhosting it :3

I like Joplin, and I’ll use Standard Notes as soon as I don’t have to pay extra, I’m already paying Proton.

What's everyone's goto app for sharing notes with others? I'm looking for something to share grocery lists and whatnot with my SO, and I want as little friction as possible.

I have some self-hosted services, but I didn't like NextCloud notes and one or two others I've tried. It doesn't need to be fancy, but I would very much like checkboxes that I can... check. I don't need users, and honestly, no user accounts could be super nice, just attach a URL and go for it.

So yeah, slight preference for self-hostable services, but I'm fine with anything, provided it's reasonably privacy friendly (nobody else needs to know the quantity or size of our sex toys lol).

Memos might work, I had it running for a week or two and it works well, very Google Keep like if that's what you're after. Edit woops, forgot the link lol https://github.com/usememos/memos
- Seconding Memos!
  
  There's no official phone app, but I've been using Moe Memos and liking it. They have a list of 3rd party apps here: https://www.usememos.com/docs/contribution/community
Take a look at the sandstorm platform. The Laverna app is a great option in my opinion.

I don't understand why these Google alternatives don't lean hard on actually replacing Google's services.

Myself as an example; if Notesnook had collaboration, I'd switch in a heartbeat.

Thr main use-case for an app like this for me is in things like grocery lists, to-do lists etc, all of which are impossible or annoying to do with Notesnook.

For general offline notes that need to be encrypted there are other solutions I'd rather use. I'd like if I could just use one app for it.

Me and my partner would HAPPILY pay for an app to get out of Google'S clutches.

There's money on the table, but they ain't counting it yet.

Why?

Have you looked into AnyList? Nevermind, I don't think they are 100% private. Forgot what sub I was in.

Is this really true about Keep? I mean, I know it's a Google product, but is it really that insecure? I've never heard much negative stuff about it.

By merit of it being owned by google, it is insecure.
Your notes are (or at least were 4 years ago when I last used it) stored in plaintext on your gmail under the notes tag. You don't hear negative stuff about it because 99% of people don't use notes for sensitive info, or even things they care about. It is also not a high profile app like messaging apps. It is just something everyone assumes is completely fine.

Google wants my shopping list and honey do lists that's shared between my wife and I? Ok enjoy, wanna come help paint my office?

Yeah and google already knows what groceries I buy if I use a discount card anyway.

I have multiple notes apps but one thing that's prevented me from ditching keep is that I have dozens of old notes which I'd like to transfer to the replacement app.

I'm pretty tech savvy but have had a look and couldn't find an easy way to export my notes from keep. Anyone have any advice?

I've spent a lot of time manually moving my notes into Obsidian. Not done yet but it's quite therapeutic when I sit down to do and I rediscover a lot of cool things I decided to jot down years ago

I use cryptpad (https://cryptpad.fr/) for writing my notes, or storing them directly to the cloud

How does cryptpad rate? I've shared docs with others where neither of us has them saved to an account, just accessed with a link. Seems pretty private that way, other than maybe someone could see the IP address traffic? How's it if you have an account with them?
- Pretty much the same but you can actually store them. On cryptpad.fr you get a gigabyte of storage for free

Switched to !joplinapp@sopuli.xyz awhile ago and I'm happy and content.

It has some rough edges but the UI is nice and it has all I need.

The best note taking tool for privacy is one of those physical journals with a lock on it.

After looking at Notesnook, I don't really understand the difference. It has features that Google Keep lacks, but if the company were to shut down their servers I would lose anything not stored locally, right? If I delete a file on one device it's presumably removed from the others upon sync, so couldn't they remotely delete my files from any connected device if they wanted to?

I don't understand encryption in the first place, so this is probably an ignorant question, but can't the company that runs the software choose to release the encryption keys anyway? My understanding is that encryption only protects my data from interception by a third party.

Assuming I'm not wrong on those points, isn't it better to only store files locally, and to share them either on physical media or via a service which won't store the files long-term? Is the issue of leaked or lost data not inherent in any hosting service?

Sorry if everything I'm saying is really stupid. I'm not trying to troll or argue in favor of Google services or anything. I just don't understand how to evaluate any given service's trustworthiness or safety.

e: I just thought to check whether Google Keep is encrypted and the internet says it is. Now I extra don't get it. Very confused.

Regarding encryption, some companies hold the encryption keys, but many, including Notesnook, use end-to-end encryption. This means the encryption happens on your device and the keys are generated from your password and stored locally rather than on the company's servers.

In that scenario the company never has access to the keys in the first place, so they wouldn’t be able to release them even if they wanted to.

Google Keep on the other hand does not use end-to-end encryption for your notes. While it does use encryption to protect data both during transmission and while stored on its servers, Google retains the ability to access the content of your notes. This means that although your data is safeguarded against external threats, Google's internal systems can still access your information.
- Thank you, that makes sense.

I started out using obsidian and it's pretty decent, but honestly Joplin is my favorite so far.

I tried logseq and absolutely fucking hated it.

I just store my notes locally. Using QOwnNotes currently as I looked at a list of FOSS options and picked what I liked the look of. Manage my own backups already so just included the notes.

Sadly there still isn't a good alternative for real-time (live) collaboration

Onlyoffice works pretty great for that, and Libre office will have that shortly as well.
- How are their android apps though? As far as I'm concerned, that is the difference between a word processor and a note application
Why not Cryptpad?

They took some decent software and added collaboration features on top
It's just markdown rather than anything structured, but hedgedoc (and its centralized cousin hackmd) are pretty good.

Can someone please explain what is meant by being a few clicks away from notes being public or deleted?

Probably referring to the fact that, since a company hosts your notes, the notes are at their mercy.

They could delete them or release them. Accidentally or on purpose.
My guess they mean that you or someone on the app side can either purposely or accidentally make your notes public or delete them.

I switched from Win10 to Fedora Linux yesterday. Any recommendations for a note taking app that runs locally on my computer? I know nothing about Linux but I got upset because Windows started showing ads on my login screen.

Obsidian, I truly believe this is the answer on most popular operating systems, not just Linux.

Sadly there is still no alternative to Notion (it’s not a note taking app, it’s database). Only SiYuan is somewhat close to Notion in its database capabilities, but comes with its own set of issues.

I would absolutely love to self-host real Notion alternative!

Closest self host I found was Outline.
Check out Docmost
- There's I sadly not a motion alternative. As the person you answered to said: notion is a fancy frontend nosql database. I'm forced to use it at work and have to admit it's need three Foss tools to handle everything my employer does with notion (documentation, task management and planning, client collaboration, project coordination, budget planning, they use the full scope).
  
  I'd still prefer docmost (thanks btw! Didn't know it beforehand). No sell though for the full transfer.
  
  And they is even without the "I need someone to shout at when something goes wrong" aspect the corporate world enjoys about "SAAS" (service my as, you just don't allow me to install it myself).
Have you heard of AppFlowy? It's basically Notion, but open source and privacy-respecting. Iirc, it has an import function from Notion
What about notes nook? https://notesnook.com/
- Sadly, it's too simple

I found no replacement for notion that uses this block structure. I love it, but notion sucks so much aaaaaaassss. I wanna move, but every export feature breaks something in my structure and i hate it :(

I'm looking into this also. The closest I found is Siyuan notes. I'm trying to setup the sync during the trial period.

I have a Synology NAS which has the DS Note app which gives you self-hosted cloud notes on mobile. It's not the best app but it's better than google

Have hundreds of notes in Joplin so far... Awesome software!

Also using joplin. It's pretty great

Edit: Fixed Joplin, fucking autocorrect

Where's Zettlr & LogSeq ?

I still use a pen and notebook. But I have an excuse: I prefer pen and paper to write (and I'm starting to get old too) ;)

The only digital note taking app I still use is the one that comes with the E2EE filen.io cloud storage, from Germany. It certainly is very limited but it's more than enough for my occasional note-taking usage and it's synced everywhere I may need to access it.

I'm 99% sure they ripped the note editing functionality from Standard Notes.

Which would upset me, except Standard Notes borrowed a lot of code for the editors from other people, and try to sell them back to you with a yearly license, even if you host your own server.
- I’m 99% sure they ripped the note editing functionality from Standard Notes.
  
  Not sure to understand, how could anyone 'rip' a note editing feature? Put text in a file (hopefully encrypted since it's online) is kinda the purpose of all note-taking app... which they all copied from their analog (and much older) version pen + paper. And the vast majority of them do it using Markdown, too. Even sync is available in most note-taking apps (with or without E2EE encryption), or do you have something a little more specific in mind they would have ripped?
  
  and try to sell them back to you with a yearly license, even if you host your own server.
  
  That's one (other) reason I like filen: lifetime plans are available (the most interesting ones are offered for a limited-time once a year during blackfriday). No sub.

no links

Hell is Google Keep? I'm pretty deep in their ecosystem, never heard of it.

Tiddlywiki with the Stroll extension for backlinks. Stored as one big encrypted file you can lob onto a network drive etc. Mine is in Dropbox.

Can't really use it across devices safely though, or at least I haven't tried.

I’ve never used a proper note taking app, but recently started using Tana (Startup, free-to-use with some limitations after giving a credit card and cancelling during a two week trial).

It’s not open source and it only supports full HTML bulleted list or a heavily proprietary JSON format (which is kinda useless outside Tana) exports. Also most of the paid features are AI BS which I don’t mind missing out on, but there are file-size limits on the free version.

However, I’m finding the UX and features so far amazing! It’s got easy relationships and a tagging hierarchy systems to which you can add fields and it supports a whole bunch of view options and query stuff. You can scroll through this 46 min YT video to get a feel for it!

Edit: forgot to mention at time pf writing (felt it was implied I guess), it’s cloud only, no local, one of the reasons I feel it’s not ideal

This app seems like the antithesis of this community. This is an ad.
- Wow, chill, I stated how it’s not in line with the community. Just thought it was worth the mention as I quite like it, it’s got plenty of UX and features I would love to see in a FOS offering but just haven’t!
  
  I’m part of the community even though I’m not a zealot, in this specific instance I’m very consciously sacrificing a bit of privacy for what I consider a better UX.
  
  My thinking was that best case someone more in the know would point out an app that’s just as good or better and offers the lacking privacy..
Same boat here, recently discovered tana and its whole model is amazing. It's fixing most of the things that bothered me a lot in Obsidian and Notion, respectively. I don't want to go back to a service where I don't have file-based control over my own data though, so now I'm seriously considering building something on my own that takes the mental model of tana, but implements it local-first based on regular files like Obsidian
- Ooooh, please spread that far and wide if you ever get around to it!!