Notion privacy respecting alternative (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by Angular2575@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

20 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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?

top 20 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] Tundra@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago

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

[-] heals@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

This looks amazing, thank you very much!

[-] mmhmm@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

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

[-] idoit@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

Joplin

[-] Angular2575@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

Joplin is a classic and was my goto before Obsidian

[-] whatsgoingdom@rollenspiel.forum 8 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

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

[-] Loucypher@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

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

[-] rutrum@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago

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

[-] Angular2575@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 month ago

This looks great, thank you!

[-] Loucypher@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

Looks sick!

[-] Ulrich@feddit.org 5 points 1 month ago

I use and recommend crypt.ee

[-] RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month 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)

Privacy

39971 readers

174 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS