Hey everyone, I’m trying to replace most of the private owned app I use by FOSS ones, and today i’m pointing at notion.
I just use it as a way to organize my notes and use it both on my laptop and phone, and i’m looking for something that can have that fonctionnality.
I’ve already looked into a bunch of foss note taking apps but I didn’t see any that could do it. (maybe i didn’t look hard enough tho)
I’m willing to use syncthing or smth similar if needed.
do you have any recommendations? anyway, have a nice day and thanks to everyone making the internet/softwares more libre and accessible!
What also works is using SyncThing. That way you can sync any app that uses files that you want. I use Obsidian for note taking which creates .MD files in a designated folder, I sync that folder with my phone.
Joplin. It’s cross platform and just works. No hassle.
I use Notesnook, but as an alternative to Notion and more complex features, it’s way too simple.
Putting in another recommendation for Notesnook.
The android app is busted for me. I’ve uninstalled and reinstalled and it will not let me login or load anything at all.
I use Notesnook and I’m happy with it. They have a flagship instance with free accounts if you don’t want to self-host.
If you want something more lightweight and are up for using syncthing, just a bunch of markdown files synced with syncthing also works. You can encrypt them with your pgp key if you want encryption, but that doesn’t encrypt metadata like file names, directory structure, or when files were last edited.
Syncthing has encryption as well. You can have a device be “untrusted” so you put in an encryption password, and data sent to and stored on that device will be encrypted.
Although this does encrypt file (and directory) names, the caveats about folder structure and modification time still apply.
Joplin. I use it on my phone, multiple laptops and Linux desktops.
I also second this. Working like a charm for me over 4 different devices and 3 different Operating systems.
Do you ever regret that Joplin does not store notes in plain text? (meaning you couldn’t edit your notes in a plain text editor if you wanted to)
Nope not a bit. But you mean through exporting stuff I assume(?).
If for any reason I need to move something to a text file (very rare) then I just cut/copy and paste without the MD.
I second this.
Standard Notes
Joplin can sync between phone and laptop with a number of network storage options
https://joplinapp.org/help/apps/sync/
or you can self-host Joplin server.
https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/blob/dev/packages/server/README.md
EDIT: I am going to edit this to reflect that I HAVE NOT tried Joplin 3.5 which says: "
More reliable syncing and sharing
Syncing and sharing have been made more robust in everyday use. Joplin now handles repeated syncs more efficiently, avoids unnecessary data usage, and is better at detecting and syncing all changes, particularly when using WebDAV and S3 sync targets."
Until I have new data I will scratch this out:
In Joplin, I have never been able to successfully use an s3 instance with two or more joplin clients. It corrupts eventually. This is using a bucket for storage directly, not WebDAV.From my research the best bet is self host, webdav, or some kind of file sync
That’s weird… I’ve been using S3 to sync Joplin between Linux and Android without corruption issues for more than a year now.
Looks like you are lucky so far. It is still in beta and not considered a full fledged part of Joplin, they have told me as much.
I admit I havetn’t tried in the last six months. I think I might, the release notes for January 2026 say they improved sync.
I also was using 3 clients, so maybe I hit it faster. Maybe 2 is ok.
yeah I use webdav on my home NAS with just one phone and one laptop. probably going to self-host serve so I can do shared notes with the Baroness.
obsidian is not FOSS BTW
Sadly, because honestly, all the FOSS options that are mentioned in this thread don’t even compare to how snappy, useful and expandable Obsidian is 😭
Probably Nextcloud
Setting up nextcloud for notes is, to take a quote from the late Robin Williams, like doing chemo cause you’re tired of shaving your head.
I love Nextcloud but it’s such a beast to setup
Filen, German OpenSource cloud service, 10 GB for free
The inbuild notes in the Vivaldi browser (Markdown) are synced between Desktop and Mobile, no third party app needed.
Anything with cloud support, really. I’m using iotas and some Android nextcloud notes app. Most apps will just write notes to .md files you can sync with nextcloud/owncloud using the desktop client.
I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard good things about Notesnook.
Been using Notesnook for almost 3 years now and it’s just awesome. Highly recommend!
notesnook
I use Joplin through some WebDAV with my cloud provider, kDrive.
Works perfectly once set up.
I don’t know if you could make it work directly from your phone to your computer though.
