It’s kind of open source even if not proper FOSS, it has effortless cloud sync on free accounts INCLUDING mobile apps, and it is focused on privacy and local first. Like I don’t think I have a login and password - there’s just a 12-word passphrase that gets generated on device and that lets me connect my other devices to my “account.”
I don’t think it directly stores things in plain text, but the interface makes it easy to use it as an organized pile text pages, because that’s what I usually want to do. You can of course export it as well.
I was so impressed by logseq……until I realized my files are all managed in a database. Obsidian just saves your notes as basic markdown files. That ended up being a big enough reason to go back.
If that’s not a big deal to you, absolutely logseq 100%.
You’re right, you can use logseq without a db. Nice!
There is a version that uses SQLite which is what I was using, it seems like that’s required for certain features like db graphs, so a bit of a bummer:
app start time from 20s to 1 ~ 2s
feat/db: loads 784571 datoms in 20077 ms
this PR: restore-graph! loads 2880 datoms in 945 ms
open "All pages" from 4s to 400ms
open "#movies" from 5s to 400ms
cmdk search && node reference are much faster, 3~4s to less than 100ms
table view scrolling now maintains a minimum frame rate of >40 fps. Previously (in feat/db), such large table views were nearly unusable, with frequent frame drops to 1 fps during scrolling.
add/remove object from "#movies" are much faster
It was the same for me. I stopped looking at Logseq the second I saw that it didn’t simply save text files. It shouldn’t really be an issue since Logseq is open source so you won’t lose access to your files but for notes I like the simplicity of plain text files for backup in git, for sharing and for searchability.
Yep same reason here. I use git for backup and sync, if my notes are in a db I can’t easily do that.
In addition to those benefits, I’d like for my information to outlive the tool I’m using to manage it, which is less likely when using something db-centric.
Same. I don’t like Joplin for the same reason. I mean, the encryption feature is super good and all, but if I can’t edit my notes in any app I want whenever I want, then it’s a no-go for me.
Yes, that’s true. But my issue is that I need to export my notes before opening them in another app. With Obsidian, I can just edit any of my notes in GNOME Text Editor, or vim, or Windows Notepad, or TextEdit, whenever I want, and when I return to Obsidian, all my edits are there, without that whole export/import process.
Logseq is better than obsidian and it’s not even at version 1 yet
I’ll start using Logseq.
I ended up on AnyType and still really like it.
It’s kind of open source even if not proper FOSS, it has effortless cloud sync on free accounts INCLUDING mobile apps, and it is focused on privacy and local first. Like I don’t think I have a login and password - there’s just a 12-word passphrase that gets generated on device and that lets me connect my other devices to my “account.”
I don’t think it directly stores things in plain text, but the interface makes it easy to use it as an organized pile text pages, because that’s what I usually want to do. You can of course export it as well.
I was so impressed by logseq……until I realized my files are all managed in a database. Obsidian just saves your notes as basic markdown files. That ended up being a big enough reason to go back.
If that’s not a big deal to you, absolutely logseq 100%.
Are you sure? In Linux all I see is a list of text files for all the pages and projects I have recorded. No DB
I believe there is a DB mode and an MD mode (I am on the MD mode and not sure if it will be decommissioned/transitioned later)
Yes I was using the db implementation but didn’t know there was a MD mode, that’s nice! Might give it another go.
What are you talking about? Logseq uses markdown. The database is built from the markdown files. You can regenerate it at any time.
You’re right, you can use logseq without a db. Nice!
There is a version that uses SQLite which is what I was using, it seems like that’s required for certain features like db graphs, so a bit of a bummer:
https://github.com/logseq/logseq?tab=readme-ov-file#-database-version
But database version’s performance is great
Result compared to feat/db:
https://github.com/logseq/logseq/pull/11774
performance isn’t really my main concern with DB.
It was the same for me. I stopped looking at Logseq the second I saw that it didn’t simply save text files. It shouldn’t really be an issue since Logseq is open source so you won’t lose access to your files but for notes I like the simplicity of plain text files for backup in git, for sharing and for searchability.
Yep same reason here. I use git for backup and sync, if my notes are in a db I can’t easily do that.
In addition to those benefits, I’d like for my information to outlive the tool I’m using to manage it, which is less likely when using something db-centric.
Same. I don’t like Joplin for the same reason. I mean, the encryption feature is super good and all, but if I can’t edit my notes in any app I want whenever I want, then it’s a no-go for me.
You can export all your already enctypted notes to the plain markdown files without encryption, so Joplin can be very easy switched to another app
Yes, that’s true. But my issue is that I need to export my notes before opening them in another app. With Obsidian, I can just edit any of my notes in GNOME Text Editor, or vim, or Windows Notepad, or TextEdit, whenever I want, and when I return to Obsidian, all my edits are there, without that whole export/import process.
But still, you can do it with Obsidian because of lack of encryption.
If you turn off encryption in Joplin, you can edit any of your markdown notes in any another app without export - like Obsidian.