I love the idea of having all my quick notes, to-do lists, knowledge base, journal, plans, etc., in one single, neatly organized place. Why wouldn’t I? But deciding on which Notion alternative to use is overwhelming.
There are so many options, and all claim to be the best. Online opinions are all over the place (as expected), and these apps aren’t exactly simple—they’re complex for good reasons, but that makes choosing one even harder. And don’t get me started on the endless YouTube videos on the topic—I could spend weeks or months researching this and testing every single one of them, but honestly, this is not how I wanna spend my time so I will ask you guys instead.
My Current Setup:
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Markor: Used it for quick thoughts, journaling, and to-do lists but stopped using it because it’s not suited for everything, and there’s no sync between Android and Linux (becsuse it is android only).
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Obsidian: Currently using it as my knowledge base and for long notes, simple to-do lists, and occasional journaling. Haven’t fully migrated to it or created an organized setup because I’m looking for a FOSS Notion alternative.
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Standard Notes: Good for quick notes, but most features are paywalled, making it feel limited.
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jtx Board: My go-to for journaling—it’s simple and quick to use.
What I need:
- FOSS, but only if it’s just as good as proprietary options in:
- Auto-sync between my Android phone and Linux desktop
- Journaling
- Quick notes
- To-do lists
- Planning
- Managing personal projects
- Writing down thoughts
- A really good Android app
- Easy to use
- Free for personal use
What I don’t care about:
Collaboration. This is for my personal use—no sharing, no team features.
Given my messy current setup and specific requirements, can anyone give me some recommendations?
Joplin is missing from your list. Does not fill all of your requirements, but I use that and logseq
+1 for Joplin. You can self-host it. If you do, you can share notes between the users of the server. I wrote a tutorial on how to install it with docker. Should you need it, pm me.
I use Joplin also, two years now. But fwiw its a database with markdown writed notes. Its not a management solution for a repository with seperate markdown files per note.
+1 for Joplin.
Been using it for two weeks and already, I'm loving its light weight feel.
Everything is markdown. Easy to upload images. AWS backups.
+1 for Logseq
Daily journaling by default. Then you can create pages for other info. You write info in blocks, similar to notion, which also allows to link at a block level. There's some plugins out there for todo lists. I basically add a todo in my daily journal, and then I can access a list of all open todo items.
For sync, I use syncthing to copy the markdown files between devices.