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 wouldnāt 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 arenāt exactly simpleātheyāre complex for good reasons, but that makes choosing one even harder. And donāt get me started on the endless YouTube videos on the topicāI 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 itās not suited for everything, and thereās 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. Havenāt fully migrated to it or created an organized setup because Iām 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 journalingāitās simple and quick to use.
What I need:
- FOSS, but only if itās 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 donāt care about:
Collaboration. This is for my personal useāno sharing, no team features.
Given my messy current setup and specific requirements, can anyone give me some recommendations?
If youāre concerned, you can use an android firewall to block Internet access from the app aside from your sync server.
But to be clear, the concern voiced in that thread is not the privileges that obsidian has, itās that other apps can read the obsidian notes. So your risk profile will vary with what notes you take.
True, however, AFAIK if your phone is not rooted, you canāt have a firewall and VPN running at the same time (the firewalls Iāve seen must be configured as VPN).
Also true, although Obsidian has access to that shared storage, and therefore, Obsidian being closed source, you have no way of knowing what they do with the files other apps create in that storage directory. Iām not saying they are acting maliciously, but I donāt like this approach (software vulnerabilities, supply chain attacks, etc.). The devs recognized the issue in another thread, but thereās no solution to the problem as of yet.
If I got it right, file access in latest Android versions must ask permissions to the user, so it should be not an issue for you
Obsidian asks for the permission upon first launch, but if you donāt give it access it wonāt work at all (itās a required permission for the app).