Joplin alternative needed

Submitted ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨jaykay@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

Hi guys! I think I’m over Joplin. Don’t get me wrong, it’s simple, it works, but… why is it Postgres db…. I have the server on a small box with like 250 GB of space and backing it up with kopia to Backblaze with free 10 GB, so I’m a bit storage cautious.

With each snapshot, it seems like a good chunk of the database changes, even when I don’t use Joplin that day. That results in kopia backing up those changed files, and backups keep growing. Right now the Joplin database is like 200Mb, BUT when I export the notes from the app… all of them weigh 2Mb… including images. Yes there is versioning of notes, but they shouldn’t be that big after one-two months lol.

I know I know, I’m being a bit weird about it, but I’m getting daily notifications about backups and I see how they grow each day.

Anyway, do you have any alternatives that have an app on iOS and on Linux? Or should I just use Apple Notes in the browser? Thanks

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Comments

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fenndev@leminal.space ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Have you looked into either Obsidian or Logseq?

Obsidian is not open source, but uses Markdown for notes just like Logseq. Very popular overall.

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- Opisek@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I also switched from Joplin to Obsidian after about half a year. There’s an open-source plugin that lets you self-host a syncing server.
  
  What I found paradoxical is how easy it is to mod and write plugins for Obsidian compared to Joplin. I would’ve thought that modifying the open-source candidate would’ve been easier, but nope.
  
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- krash@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I second obsidian. I was on the verge to jump onto logseq, but found its way of handling notes to be… different. I also felt a dislike of anytype where I don’t really have control over my notes. Obsidian clicked with me from the start and felt right. So I went with it, even though it’s not FOSS (which is usually a hard requirement from me).
  
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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I’ve been on Obsidian before, but self-hosted syncing on iOS is a bit finicky.
  
  I’ve heard good things about Logseq, but it’s certainly a waaay different approach to notes. I’ll have to read more about it. Thanks :)
  
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- helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How do you self-host Obsidian?
  
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  - bbuez@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Syncthing is the way, I had tried setting on nextcloud but never could get it to store how I wanted, but syncthinf was ridiculously easy and should work for anything that uses a folder
    
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  - RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That’s the near thing about it… you don’t.
    
    But jokes aside, it is mostly about syncing notes for the selfhosting part. You either go with the official offer, no self-hosting and costs money, or you use a community plug-in, self-hosted, or you use a third program like syncthing, selfhosted.
    
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TCB13@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

why is it Postgres db…

Why on earth are you using that? Just use WebDAV, you’ll only be required to have some WebDAV server such as Nginx and it will sync GB of notes without issues. joplinapp.org/help/apps/sync/webdav/ medium.com/…/build-a-webdav-server-with-nginx-866…

I would’ve NEVER ever moved to Joplin if it wasn’t able to sync with WebDAV. I’m not into having a special daemon running on a server for that task, makes zero sense.

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I need to look into webDAV then :D
  
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  - TCB13@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Yes you do ahaha
    
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- colebrodine@midwest.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It works great with my self-hosted NextCloud!
  
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knF@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Did you know that you can use Joplin on a standard webdav server? Basically it just takes up the space of the data itself. I have it on a Caddy server and works like q charm synching between Windows and Android client

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- observantTrapezium@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Came here to say just that. The WebDAV synchronization target is great.
  
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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, I’m yet to play around with WebDAV or learning what it actually is haha Will look into it, thanks :)
  
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Unlearned9545@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Connect it to a DAV server and you dont have to learn a new software.

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Gotta learn about that DAV thing everyone is talking about ig haha
  
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bluespin@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I recently switched from Joplin to Obsidian for different reasons. I’d prefer something FOSS, but so far I’ve been happy with the transition. Since it works with plain markdown files, it would fit your use case

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’ve switched from Obsidian to Joplin actually, cos syncing was a chore and Joplin is more straight forward imo
  
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Cyber@feddit.uk ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Logseq. That is all. (Oh, and syncthing…)

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I find their paradigm… different and not entirely sure if I like it yet, need to look into it more :)
  
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  - fossphi@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do you mind expanding a bit on how you use joplin? I’m curious about the difference you found compared to logseq
    
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indigomirage@lemmy.ca ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Can you not just backup the pg txn logs (with periodic full backups, purged in accordance with your needs?). That’s a much safer way to approach DBs anyway.

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code@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Joplin server also will use a file based storage instead of the db. And db then is only used for users

I use joplin as i share notes and collaborate with my wife. Obsidian etc dont do that. Id love to be on obsidian as i really like it but sharing notebooks is mandatory

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- Squizzy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is why I’m moving to Joplin too
  
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letsgo@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Oops I thought you were going to be ragging on an early jazz genre.

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DichotoDeezNutz@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m going to start developing my own alternative, is there any features that you really need/want?

I was planning on making this self hosted via docker with the option to save to Google drive.

github.com/ssebs/PadPal-Server

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- Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Here’s what I would be looking for;
  
  Decent mobile app (more than happy to pay for this if it’s a one time fee)
  
  Bonus for a OneNote / Evernote style Android widget
  
  WYSIWYG editor on mobile and desktop (why in God’s name does every Foss notes app insist I use a markdown language?) with bullet points, numbered lists, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and headings.
  
  Checklists (as in, ability to add checkboxes to notes)
  
  Ability to create an arbitrarily deep folder structure
  
  Tags would be nice
  
  Import from popular apps like OneNote, Evernote, or Joplin is basically essential at this point. A lot of us have way too fucking many notes to move by hand.
  
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  - DichotoDeezNutz@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Most of those are on the to-do list! I definitely like the Google keep style widget but want better UX when typing out bullet lists.
    
    Thanks for the suggestions
    
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2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Seconding what others have already said. You should ABSOLUTELY NOT directly back up /var/lib/postgresql if that’s what you’re doing right now. Instead, use pg_dump: www.postgresql.org/docs/current/backup-dump.html

This should also give you smaller and probably more compressible backup sizes.

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aniki@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why are you not using the built-in backup system?

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  If you mean the ‘export’ function, it’s not really the same as I’d have to do it manually every time
  
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vvv@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why do you need to back up that server data? The great thing about joplin, is that the full content of your notes (and history) is distributed, like a git repo. As long as you have one device left with your notes, everything else can be bootstrapped from there. If your sync server burns down, start a new one and sync your notes to it again.

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  True, should’ve thought of that. Well, at least this gives me a chance to explore and learn alternatives :P
  
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- BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Genuine question - doesn’t this leave you open to loss of data from database corruption or an app failure (or human error, accidentally deleting a bunch of pages, for example)?
  
  I’ve used “sync as backup” a lot, and run into these kinds of issues (it’s my current OneNote “backup” strategy). I’m just not familiar enough with Joplin to know what risks this exposes.
  
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  - jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    There is a fail-safe switch in settings preventing the deletion of local copy if the remote is empty
    
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smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Notesnook is great. Not yet self-hostable (server is open source), but they are working on it.

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fahad@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Logseq

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entropicshart@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I self host Outline with storage connected to a Minio instance that I use as S3 storage for several applications.

I loved the ability of writing in markdown form, but a simple and intuitive design, with the ability to share a whole collection, a subset of pages, or a single page publicly without dealing with a bunch of overhead.

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gazby@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If you’re after some help with the WebDAV part I set it up for myself recently and would be happy to help adapt my stuff to your stack (mine is Apache + compose, but would be about just as easy with anything else). Reply here or DM any time 💯

And good on you for being turned around on your original premise and being so gracious about it in the comments mate 👍

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Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters More Letters

Git Popular version control system, primarily for code

HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web

nginx Popular HTTP server

[Thread #413 for this sub, first seen 8th Jan 2024, 22:35] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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Bitrot@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Simplenote, Notesnook, Obsidian.

Obsidian sync isn’t free, and it’s easy to violate their license if you mix work and personal notes.

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atzanteol@sh.itjust.works ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I think you need to learn more about how databases work. They don’t typically reclaim deleted space automatically for performance reasons. Databases like to write to a single large file they can then index into. Re-writing those files is expensive so left to the DBA (you) to determine when it should be done.

And how are you backing up the database? Just backing up /var/lib/postgres? Or are you doing a pg_dump? If the former then it’s possible your backups won’t be coherent if you haven’t stopped your database and it will contain that full history of deleted stuff. pg_dump would give you just the current data in a way that will apply properly to a new database should you need to restore

You can also consider your backup retention policy. How many backups do you need for how long?

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- jaykay@lemmy.zip ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  You are right, I should. They are a bit more complicated than I anticipated, and apparently I’m doing everything wrong, haha. I have backups set up to go 2 years back, but I’m checking backblaze occasionally to check, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I have two months so far lol Thanks for the write-up :)
  
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Fewer Letters	More Letters
Git	Popular version control system, primarily for code
HTTP	Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web
nginx	Popular HTTP server