Notesnook.
It’s FOSS, it’s loaded with features, it’s cross-platform, and offers a self-hostable FOSS sync server, too.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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It sounds like you might like Logsec. I use it for general note-keeping, but I think it would work really well as a journal because it defaults to a new time-stamped entry when you open it. These entries are presented chronology like a journal, and you can create links to other pages if you want to dive further into a specific topic.
Also, all entries are saved as standard markdown files, so they would be easy to adapt to another software later if needed. This also makes it really easy to sync data between devices with something like Syncthing.
CherryTree LibreOffice You know, it's all about taste, and the system you set up. What is "modern" to you? Share a picture? What do you mean by "cool"? Safe, is that encryption, or the ability to not lose your entries, like backup and such?
Either or both could also be accomplished with thy setup through encrypted partition or flash drives or just manually encrypted files plus manual backups. Personally, I'd just use kde vaults for ease of use.
I discovered Trilium a couple days before discovering the project was dead. But here is TriliumNext now so it's not that much of a problem (yay opensource!)
Works great on a computer, not as much on a phone. There are android apps to send directly something to it, but reading its content involves the webapp directly... which isn't that bad but overall that's not ideal. Still, after years of trying floss journaling apps one after another, it's the only one I kept more than a couple weeks.
AnyType is an interesting option.
it's not open source
Was going to say Obsidian, but upon verifying, realized that it's not actually open source. Interesting.
Whilst not open source, I appreciate that the notes are locally stored in straightforward markdown. I no longer use Obsidian, but I appreciated how there was next to no platform lock-in (the only snag I experienced in moving to a different note taking approach was a couple of plugins that gave additional features. But that's easy to avoid if portability of data is important)
Jrnl on pc and sync the folder to my android and use markor there.
Joplin synced to a self-hosted sync server with E2EE on, that's my setup. Works great.
Came here to say exactly that!
if you don't mind a lil scripting, I use silverbullet quite a bit for journaling as well as note taking.
I don't do journaling full time, but Joplin has been great. FOSS, cross-platform, allows you to pick sync target (if you want any, I use my cloud provider) and on top of it all it supports e2e encryption of your notes.
Nicest thing (personally): allows you to export markdown/html/pdf/etc..
I tried Joplin. I found it ...... (no offence) but Boring. Like a grey screen. You khow, like maybe it has everything. But mindnummingly dull. Like i am coming from DD-DigitalDiary so maybe its just me. But .... like it has animations. But so so (youknow) boring Why cant a Journaling app look cool. Does it have to put me to sleep (Again no offence to anyone who loves Joplin)
Haha no worries, I know what you mean. I love Joplin and personally like the style, but it is bland compared to alot of other apps. Hoping that it will evolve and offer more themes :)
I do pen and paper.
I also write cursive as an obfuscation tactic. Makes it harder for the younger generations to figure out what my thoughts were.
I learned Pitman shorthand. It combined with cursive English makes it so only a few elderly women and I can read my diary.
I can only read it from a distance, but being bilingual doesn't help either
For android I tend to like Safe Notes. It's relatively simple, encrypted with either passphrase or biometrics, and stored locally, with a way to back up to a file. Just make sure you memorize/save the passphrase so you don't lose your entries. It's android only though, if that matters. I only use it for shorter stuff, so I'm not sure how well it works for longer entries.
What are you looking for features? A Simple text editor and saving as markdown is not good enough? Can save it in a cloud host.
I don't really care a lot about cloud. I like my journal entries to not get read by anyone. No server, nothing. Super secure, open source and free. Maybe if i provide my server URL it can store it over there
Does a simple file not good? Missing the "not read by anyone" So you need a lock/encryption on it?
Plain text is how I have it set up. I have the files named by date in one folder (made effortless with my small script) and a plain text editor on my phone, also pointed to a specific folder. The setup is pretty much ready for Syncthing if I wanted to automate syncing, but I haven't bothered yet.
You Know, I think you got a point 👍
I have tried all the biggest name tools, but have concluded that analog pen and paper work best
Especially if you care about security much
What about just a simple paper notebook?
(I'm not trying to be a jerk)
Tried it. Didn't work. Bcoz we have to write. More work. I want something easy. Like Speech To Text. When a paper notebook comes with Speech to Text i will definately get onboard
Standard Notes. You can even self host.
Unfortunately many basic features are paywalled
I used to use RedNotebook[0] wayback when, but have since switched to Emacs and am therefore now an insufferable org-mode/roam user.
Need something primarily in Android. I dont think rednotebook is available in Android
Linux -> Text Editor Offline -> Pen & Paper
Apostrophe might work? Not sure.
I recomend vscodium + github for Linux. Use it Myself But i am looking for Android primarily and not Linux And Pen & Paper. Tried it or 10yrs but i rarely wrote ever. Whenever i sat down to write i got bored and couldnt finish. Maybe its similar to attention disorder or something but writing using pen & paper is hard. Thats why i prefer SpeechToText (for Android) or at least a keyboard (for Linux / PC)
VS Codium is great! When I start a project, I always make a notes.txt to gather myself. As for P&P, the only way I have gotten myself to write on it is to get a small enough guy that I can keep it with me in one of my more common sitting spaces. Google is a creep, but Keep is simple. I've known a ton of people in the past who get a tape recorder and keep their notes on that. There's a FOSS voice recorder on F-Droid called Fossify Voice Recorder. I am not sure if that's what you want however.
After reading all the comments I think that what you need is a voice recorder, make entries Star Trek style and run the audio files through a transcription tool in bulk once a month or so. Or just keep them in audio format.
@Sauron Joplin (mentioned earlier) is fantastic. I use Standard Notes. Big fan.
You know, the more i read the recomendations the more i am starting to like DD-DigitalDiary. There are a lot of issues with it. I am not saying there isnt. But its COOL. And Not Boring. Like Joplin has everything i want but it is super boring. Standard Notes is Not. It is Better. At least i guess similar to DayOne but with the Sync options which is pretty cool. But have you seen the UI/UX designs of DD-DigitalDiary. Like it looks more like Instagram than a normal journaling application. I Wish they make it OpenSource soon though
TrilliumNext Notes is a great one.
I'm not one for journalling but I was looking for notes and I didn't like Logseq since it was to journally for me. https://logseq.com/
Bro, u may like DD-DigitalDiary. It is SocialMedialy. Kind of like BeReal or Instagram 😊
I don't have an answer for you, but a dev for that DigitalDiary app posted earlier today looking for feature input and saying they are going to open source it in the next 2 months or something like that. I don't have a link to the post, sorry, but I just thought it might be helpful to know about
LunaTask