Notion privacy respecting alternative (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by Angular2575@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I am currently using Obsidian. I like it; it is great. The graph is a bit of a gimmick but very rewarding. The formatting is easy. The search can be great and powerful, but Markdown can also be a letdown sometimes; it is just so limiting sometimes.

I think Obsidian is almost boring. It works, and my main gripe is syncing it to my phone. I have tried using Syncthing, but I often get clashes with versions of notes or even lose notes, even when using Syncthing versioning.

But then there is Notion. Let me first say, I have not used Notion at all. I made an account, saw all the great stuff, especially the database feature and all the APIs, but something felt off.

Of course, I researched the privacy of Notion and realised it is a complete dumpster fire.

My work is confidential; I really can't use something like Notion. But then, for my personal stuff, I also don't want AI to be trained on it or used for marketing to me or on me.

Are there alternatives to Notion that someone can recommend to me?

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[-] Tundra@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I believe you will happy with anytype:

https://anytype.io/

the source code is made public and your notes/database are encrypted by default. You can even sync locally from your phone/laptop without internet.

The only two negatives I have found are that the mobile app has 1 tracker embedded into it (amplitude) and you dont have a choice about your encrypted data syncing to their servers.

[-] scintilla@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

This looks amazing thank you for this. Never would have thought about switching before I saw this.

[-] heals@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 months ago

If you’re a little into self-hosting and can follow a readme on how to start a Docker container then you can even get around having any of your data on their servers and use a private sync server :)

[-] Angular2575@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 months ago

This looks amazing, thank you very much!

[-] mmhmm@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Support if you like it and can. I use it everyday and can't say enough nice things. They have a great telegram channel that is very active

[-] tkw8@lemm.ee 3 points 2 months ago

That is something that a pihole can sort completely, no?

[-] idoit@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Looks cool, but what do you mean about encrypted data syncing to their servers? Why is that necessary if there is a local sync feature?

[-] the_abecedarian@piefed.social 9 points 2 months ago

Joplin

[-] Angular2575@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Joplin is a classic and was my goto before Obsidian

[-] whatsgoingdom@rollenspiel.forum 8 points 2 months ago

Not really unfortunately. I use Joplin with my notes living on my nextcloud at the moment, but its still not quite what I'm looking for. Notesnook might be another one worth looking at. I think you can also self host it, but I haven't tried it yet.

https://notesnook.com/

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago

Logseq can be run locally (without any “cloud”) and is free & open source.

[-] Loucypher@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

But considerably different compared to Obsidian in a lot of small ways. It was a deal breaker for me

[-] ctenidium@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

I came here to recommend Logseq. It has quite some plugins for different use cases, too.

[-] rutrum@programming.dev 6 points 2 months ago

https://appflowy.com/ is another possibility.

[-] Angular2575@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

This looks great, thank you!

[-] Loucypher@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

Looks sick!

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 2 months ago

I use and recommend crypt.ee

[-] RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I know of these 2. The second i have been using and is very nice.

https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy

https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan

[-] knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 2 months ago

I write notes in markdown (I'm not attached to any particular editor) and push them to a self hosted git server. Git therefore also helps handle any merge conflicts between devices.

[-] AntY@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago

Org-roam for emacs is an alternative. It doesn’t have a phone application though.

this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025

25 points (96.3% liked)

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