Notion-like FOSS app

[rmdes]

Baserow : This under development project seems to be in the "alternative to airtable" category : https://baserow.io/ https://gitlab.com/bramw/baserow

Notion :
I have a friend that moved his entire wordpress.org blog (15 years of posts) to guess what ?
notion !

He's definitely part of the no-code approach and bootstrap lots of different journalist/media projects with no-code approaches.

I wish I could convince him to use something else and instead have an entire cloudron powering his infrastructure, but without a serious FOSS alternative to notion I won't get him on our boat

[yusf]

@rmdes Exactly. There’s no arguing against such superior product.

If only there was a way to make sure FOSS devs got paid for their work…

[marcusquinn]

@yusf I think GitHub Sponsoring is making better inroads for that. Be good if GitLab followed that too.

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Notion-like FOSS app:

https://anytype.io
https://github.com/anytypeio
https://twitter.com/AnytypeLabs

Yeah @seeker mentioned Anytype.io higher up the thread, looks like it'sthe closest thing to an open source Notion.

Fill in this form to help them prioritise (and likely get you up the wait list too):

https://anytype.typeform.com/to/bRQZWx

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Be good if GitLab followed that too.

Yeah, although nothing stopping anyone setting up OpenCollective and Liberapay accounts and adding the info to their README in GitLab

Both are open source too. Open Collective isn't really designed/ ready to self-host yet but you can support those efforts here https://opencollective.com/community and upvote here:

https://forum.cloudron.io/post/5408

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Twake looks interesting: https://twake.app

It's nothing like Notion imho, but does indeed look pretty nice!

Upvote here:
https://forum.cloudron.io/post/10591

[jdaviescoates]

@jdaviescoates said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Yeah @seeker mentioned Anytype.io higher up the thread, looks like it'sthe closest thing to an open source Notion.

I attended an intro webinar thing about anytype.io the other day.

It's pretty cool, but they have no plans for a web app.

It's all based on IPFS

[yusf]

@jdaviescoates Interesting. What's the front-end stack like?

[jdaviescoates]

@yusf as in what is it coded in? I'm not sure actually. If they covered that it was during the part I missed!

[yusf]

@jdaviescoates If they have no plans for a web app I really wonder what stack they're using and possible subsequent lockins.

But regardless I'm also interested in what they did have to say about their project.

[seeker]

@jdaviescoates Thanks! I am curious how did you find out about the information session?

[jdaviescoates]

@seeker I filled in this form:
anytype.typeform.com/to/bRQZWx

You can also join their Telegram group if that's your thing:
t.me/anytype

[soup]

If there's still interest around this question, the most promising option right now is Athens, which aims to be an alternative to Roam and Notion (and is getting close to feature-parity).

[marcusquinn]

@soup Nice spot! Trial by downloaded Electron version is handy too. Looks like it deserves it's own App Wishlist post if you'd like the finder's honours?

[jdaviescoates]

@marcusquinn said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Looks like it deserves it's own App Wishlist post if you'd like the finder's honours?

I only had a very quick look but it looks like Athens is like Anytype in that it's not actually a server thing at all, no? i.e. I think it's just a desktop app, not a web app, no?

[soup]

@marcusquinn said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Looks like it deserves it's own App Wishlist post if you'd like the finder's honours?

Yep, can do the post :).

@marcusquinn @girish
Can I do one post for Athens and one for Logseq? Both are doing the same thing, the difference being that (i) Athens goes with a custom format for storing files, while Logseq works with text files (both markdown and org mode) [edit: Athens also aims to store information in text files in the future] and (ii) can sync via Github (+Gitlab, WebDAV, etc. in the future). Logseq's founder did state that it's designed to be self-hostable, but hasn't released the backend code yet (need to ensure security first), so maybe I should wait before doing that post?

By the way, the founders of both apps are very reactive: might be interesting to drop them a line on Github or Twitter as they might be willing to provide support with the packaging.

---

@jdaviescoates said in Notion-like FOSS app:

I only had a very quick look but it looks like Athens is like Anytype in that it's not actually a server thing at all, no? i.e. I think it's just a desktop app, not a web app, no?

I agree that it is a bit unclear, I'm going off of the fact that the option to self-host features quite heavily in Athens' communication and approach to monetisation, and the founder did discuss hosting on Sandstorm here (though it did prove problematic), but I might have misunderstood.

[jdaviescoates]

@soup said in Notion-like FOSS app:

Can I do one post for Athens and one for Logseq?

Go for it! You don't need permission

[soup]

The Athens post: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/4717/athens-open-source-and-local-first-alternative-to-roam-research-also-like-notion-obsidian?_=1616151737160

The Logseq post: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/4718/logseq-privacy-first-open-source-knowledge-sharing-and-management-platform-like-notion-roam-obsidian

[infogulch]

Athens is pretty cool, but it doesn't have an api or any kind of server side component. I tried to package it for cloudron a couple weeks ago ( https://source.infogulch.com/infogulch/athens-app ) before I discovered this. logseq is in the same boat.

See this discussion for input from a contributor: https://github.com/athensresearch/athens/discussions/737

[ctrl]

@infogulch Never had my hands on Trilium Notes. But judging from the screenshots doesn't it offer concepts used in these kind of roaming tools like the Zettelkasten Methode which was heavily used by Niklas Luhmann et al.? Btw. Anytype is on my personal watchlist, too.

@yusf I tried out Notion last year but only for a day or so and abandoned it quickly because of data protection and privacy concerns. My first impression was that it had a very specific characteristic in its appereance and handling. What I really liked about it was that it felt quite calm on the surface hiding and simplificating the complexity of its possibilities. In a way it reminded me of Things.app on macOS.
Yesterday I found Focalboard by Mattermost. I don't know if it fills the gap but at least it promotes itself as an open source, self-hosted alternative to Trello, Notion, and Asana. @thetomester13 created an app request already. ^^

I am also on a long lasting journey on the search for the appropriate toolset that fits my way of thinking. Currently I use multiple tools. Most of the time I start out with a mindmap. Although it is not perfect Mindnode does quite a good job in the fields of mindmapping in regards of UX. It lets me quickly visualize my thoughts and doesn't get into the way too much in that process which helps me to slip into some kind of a flow state. Sometimes I wish we had neural interfaces to project all of these interconnected thought that seem to pop of the ground like mushrooms while surfing through an idea.

The problem with a mindmap is that it is neither interactive after it has been created nor can it be connected or extended by ongoing research in a comfortable/elegant way. Maybe the roaming tools mentioned by @soup could fill that gap. I'll get my hands on these asap. What do you think about Trilium? Does it fit in that kind of category?