I am searching for the best option for organising my personal knowledge, secure and always available.
My requirements: -Selfhosted -Open Source -Login protection (OIDC would be a dream) -Collaboration on notes would be awesome -Not limited to one device e.g. using it on multiple devices like the phone and laptop -No lock in (if it works with md. files in the backend that’s perfect) -Zotero integration would be fancy
I tried different solution and the, slowest, but the simplest is actually Nextcloud Notes. I just hate the interface and the small width of the writing window.
What I also liked for that use case was outline - which is just to complicated and way to demanding to setup and maintain as I want to solely rely on it. But that’s the closest to the features I mentioned for me. I once brokenit for like 2 months which made me switch to NC Notes - where I am not really happy.
There are a lot of nice tools but coming to open source it gets thin…
Also there are a lot of nice tools like Logseq and Zettelkasten which are impressive but limited to a device or to a cloud drive where you have to make sure it synced…
How do you organize your notes and personal knowledge in your Homelab setup? Which tools do you use - and do you collaborate on notes?
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Check this out I just found out about it it’s open source self hosted and free
https://www.usememos.com/Outline, has OICD, sharing and more. Downside: No apps, only web.
Joplin could be an option. It can sync either off a cloud drive like Dropbox, or to a server. There is a Joplin cloud which is pretty inexpensive, or you can self host. Joplin can do encryption locally (E2E) before syncing.
Joplin does abstract away the notes files, but its all stored as markdown and the export will give you your notes in a nice human readable folder+file structure.
I’ll throw hedgedoc in the mix. We use it for TONS of work at my small company. I wish it had better search, and organize sticky notes. I’m praying the new version comes out. Anyway we love it with all its flaws.
I just hate the interface and the small width of the writing window.
You know that you can just edit the notes files with any texteditor you like on any system that is, at least, capable of webdav? I edit my notes with my iphone on the default “notes” app, as example.
I just use Obsidian with Synchthing to sync devices
My journey:
Joplin -> Trilium Notes -> Logseq -> Obsidian
I find Obsidian the most powerfull, because of the PlugIn system and full compatiblity with Android and iPad.
And I realized, it’s a stupid idea to have a “knowledge base” in a Docker setup, if you need this knowledge base also for debugging or reinstall your Homelab. So the local installation of Obsidian togeter with Synchting gives you always access to your knowledge, even if the server are down.
However, none of the above have collaborate features. But don’t need it.
I use Obsidian mostly but also sometimes memos:
I set up a VSCode server on my Raspberry Pi, run rclone bisync every half hour which syncs text files with a designated folder on my Synology NAS, and I can have access to all my notes, which are all text files.
Trillium works nice, only bad thing compared to obsidian is that the files are not stored as plain text, but otherwise it’s preeeety feature rich.
I use Obsidian with self-hosted live-sync from here: https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync/
Basically you have a couchDB hosted in your homelab to store your obsidian data and then the obsidian self hosted live sync plugin that runs on your devices connects to your self hosted database and sync your notes there in an optimized. I tried both this and sincronizing via github and I prefer this, because is faster and less intrusive
Outline recently added support for local storage instead of S3. Authentication is the only other common self-hosted pain point, but given you’re looking for OIDC anyway, I don’t see why it wouldn’t be a viable option.
try anytype.io
Nextcloud Notes for Personal stuff, to-do lists, grocery lists etc. I heavily utilize Nextcloud in my personal life. My server is fairly optimized and performant, the syncing is great, mobile app is decent and overall, it “just works” for me. It’s also really nice having all that stuff in one place.
silverbullet.md for homelab notes, personal wiki-like articles and stuff of that nature. I love the interface and markdown support. It’s easy to use, the search feature is really nice and it has modular functionality (using plugins). It’s running on a vm fronted by a reverse proxy (for SSL) so I can easily hit from any device on the lan.