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How did you choose between Joplin, Foam, Trilium, Obsidian, Logseq, Roam?

23 points by dkural ↗ HN
I'm considering exploring other systems besides Roam, which is the only thing I've used so far and got overwhelmed by the number of choices. Which one of these projects are well loved by the HN community / why?

23 comments

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smodo
You don't choose between them. You just infinitely juggle all of them.

I'm currently on a 6 month streak with Logseq. A daily journal by default with inline todo's is exactly what I need right now. But when a project puts me in a different mode of operation, maybe I'll go back to categorical notes.

The one thing I will never do is put my data somewhere I can't get to it easily. This is why Notion is a no-go for me; it's an instant lock in.

nameless912
I started using Roam because it seemed neat, and then I switched to Notion because it seemed neat. I've stuck with Notion because it's good for planning D&D campaigns.

...That's kind of the extent of my thought process.

jamesgeck0
I just tried using a whole bunch of them as daily drivers, one by one.

- I didn't give Joplin a fair shot; something about the UI annoyed me. I only used it for a few minutes, but it seemed clunky.

- Logseq's outline style isn't how I take notes.

- Foam was good, but had a lot of small papercuts.

- FSNotes was close, but I liked the more basic note format that other apps have, and it didn't have a note graph.

- Obsidian is where I settled for work stuff. It has the best live markdown editor of anything I tried. Daily notes are great. I liked inline notes while evaluating it, but now I never use them. The plugin system seems like a bit of a security nightmare, so I use as few plugins as possible.

- Standard Notes is what I use for personal notes. Barebones feature set and the editing UIs leave something to be desired. But it's open source and e2e encrypted, so I feel okay about putting anything in it and using it to sync notes between my PC and phone.

MisterSandman
I use Joplin every day. It's UI is very clunky. Sorting is weird, their multiple views are weird. The entire folder and file and todo structure is weird.

If anyone has any suggestions I can switch into that can let me import my existing Joplin .md files, please let me know.

mickelsen
I'm tired of seeking, testing and waiting for the 'right' notetaking tool, it's been years and damn I just want something like Onenote but open source and there isn't, I could cope with an old version that felt so perfect at the time, then they screwed up, just that view with the notes on the side, damn it. Currently I just keep markdown notes in directories, I do have a self-hosted GetOutline.com instance which has been working surprisingly well, even the responsive mobile version, yet I'd like to have this same nice looking editor with files in my drive instead of a db, don't need any of the collab options.
pqs
Have you seen that the old OneNote 2016 is the new OneNote?
mickelsen
> old OneNote 2016 is the new OneNote

I'm on a mac, so they killed that version a long ago and there's only one, which can't have local-first notes, not that it ever could but I was able to download them, and the app resembled the older desktop onenote more.

Still I'm looking to stay away from proprietary clouds after that, but there's no real alternative in sight, and all those graph-linked experimental digital garden pkm are just overkill and too obsessive for me; I'm yet to see the purported knowledge revolution inspired on Doug Engelbart-yada-yada these tools promise.

pqs
I understand. There is so much going on in this space but somehow something is lacking.
suprjami
By ditching all of them and using a plain directory of Markdown notes edited with vim.
jstx1
Obsidian is a directory of markdown notes.
suprjami
I tried this a long time ago and it didn't do what I was after. I looked again and it's grown a lot. I'll try it again. Thanks for the suggestion.
zperzendetta
I didn't, I still use Emacs with org-mode and org-roam, saving searchs and wrapping everything I need through org-ql, while having in place what Emacs' ecosystem has to offer.
throwaway675309
I tried Joplin but it has a weird way of actually encoding the notes and obfuscates them a little bit in terms of their naming.

Logseq I didn't enjoy it all because it really forces you to represent everything in terms of hierarchical list which was too opinionated for my taste.

I ultimately settled on Obsidian because it doesn't make any modifications and you can just throw it at a huge folder of markdown notes. The ability to add CSS snippets and js plug-ins is an extra bonus.

animesh
I tried most of these and settled on a something that is offline, non-electron and fast enough: QOwnNotes (https://www.qownnotes.org/)

Some highlights:

1. markdown support (with preview)

2. plain text editing

3. hierarchical notes

4. keyboard accessibility

5. decent plugins (plantuml integration among others)

6. note folders (separate workspaces)

7. responsive dev team

8. nextcloud integration

labarilem
I only tried Joplin and it's good enough for me so I'm still sticking with it.
guilhas
For simple daily notes I always come back to Zim wiki, with git

WYSIWYG, you have to enable plugins that come by default. Journal, Alt-d, creates a file for the day

https://zim-wiki.org

But it depends, your needs. I would say Obsidian also looks good

Works offline, and without; Markdown files folder; Healthy plugin ecosystem; Firefox/Chrome plugins; Less web appy than others

coffeeling
Easy: Foam isn't standalone, Trilium never heard of. Joplin seems garbage, and Logseq is a walking data stability bug.

Roam and Obsidian are the best options, I chose Obsidian because back in the day they had a mobile app and Roam didn't. Now Roam has one too.

juxtapose
I use Logseq because it is just a local-first version of Roam Research.

To those who haven't used Roam Research or Logseq or anything similar, you are missing some really good stuff.