HelixNotes is completely free, open source, with no bloat. Your notes should be yours.
So we made sure they are. https://helixnotes.com/
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No vibe coding. No AI. No slop. This is absolutely screaming LLM
the advertising is troubling to me somehow; it has a budget and someone deciding were to spend the money on advertising.
the advertising is troubling to me somehow; it has a budget and someone deciding were to spend the money on advertising.
I’m not being paid to advertise. This is just my contribution to the project.
that’s impressive af; it looks really professional!
Thank you, that’s very kind of you to say!
you should go pro; you clearly already have the skills.
The whole website looks like AI.
Also the commit history is only 3 month old and the first commit is 26000 lines. How ever this could be longer in development and commits could be squashed. At this point, I doubt it though.
They could be hosting the source code on github or something like that and changed to couldberg no?
nope, the git history would move with the repo
This isn’t a guarantee and also assumes the previous version management was git.
Depends how you do it. Add a new remote and push, sure. Copy the src into a newly init repo, not so much. Granted there is no reason to do the latter but you could.
He did one big rewritten before because of poor gui speed. I won’t comment on of if he use ai or not or code quality, but you can probably search old posts about his rewritten. I do agree dev should keep his git history less susceptible especially in this ai slop age
automatically responding that this was created with an LLM? this is absolutely screaming LLM
Huge amount of downvotes. Clearly openclaw orchestrating angent swarm. /s
i see the LLMs have learned to use the “/s” mark!
I’m afraid I won’t be locking the pod bay doors today, Dave.
I’ll wait a few months and then check in again.
It stores all metadata in YAML frontmatter and doesn’t cache in an SQLite blob? I bet that decision will be reversed pretty quickly once people try to migrate a 10k+ note collection and want to do operations like search immediately instead of scanning every file to build an in-memory cache.
You’re right that all metadata lives in markdown frontmatter, but it’s not uncached. The notes list also only reads around 2KB frontmatter, so it stays fast well past 10k notes. We do have some tweaks planned though to optimize this even further. This is a great suggestion, thank you!
I’ve been using Joplin on my phone and laptop with WebDAV sync to my NAS. Have plans to update to Joplin server so can share notes with the Baroness.
Been using Joplin with self hosted server for years and it’s been great. It’s not the prettiest app, but it’s been the stickiest for my needs.
Iirc Joplin has a Nextcloud plugin so Nextcloud can be the self hosted cloud storage. I’ve been meaning to set it up
As someone who used NC with Joplin for a long time, I wouldn’t recommend it. I prefer syncthing now, much simpler to manage and find your files vs it being nested in a big clunky NC instance.
I need to look into sync thing I hear good things. Basically you point it to some storage and have it copy a local folder/file?
It’s super easy to configure over a LAN.
You set up a folder path to sync, authorize it between two machines, and set up your configuration (mirrored sync, one way, etc).
For photos taken by my phone for example, I have two syncs set up (maybe not the best way to do it it’s just how I did it in 5 min when I started and never changed it)
Phone has a 2 way sync set up with my photo folder with my desktop. Meaning, when I delete/modify a photo either at my phone or the desktop it deletes/modifies the photo on the other device.
Additionally, I have a 1-way sync of my photo folder between my desktop and my server archive, so the server only pulls in new files and never deletes or modifies existing files in the archive. So if something happens to my sync folder or if I delete something on accident then I have an archive copy, important for precious memories. Every now and then I just delete the contents of the archive folder and it immediately re-syncs the existing folder of all the stuff I actually wanted to keep. Could set up a cron job but I’m too lazy.
For Joplin I just have a folder on each device that’s JUST my Joplin notes that syncs between my devices that use Joplin. Easy as pie - as soon as I turn on my laptop or desktop it syncs up with whatever changes have happened on the other two.
For syncthing I like to make a top level sync folder on each device and then nest many folders under that top level, each to sync distinct things depending on what device it is. You can just sync a main folder if you want but I like the granular control, and as you figure out more stuff to sync it scales much better if you start that way, and name folders consistently.
Just be careful in the beginning and always back stuff up. It’s not TOO easy to mess up but if you did it would be unforgiving. Test it with some random stuff before you start sending anything important.
I’ve using Joplin for more than a year now and it’s awesome.
I also have Joplin and recently moved to self-hosted joplin server (from filesystem sync) and it was smooth af and works so flawlessly i love it!
i upgraded to using Joplin from my old notes app that was not as robust.
i absolutely love Joplin and it’s really great for organization as well.
simple and effective.
Nice to see a Tauri app around here !
At this point I just need a markdown editor for my phone and syncthing to move everything back and forth.
Joplin works really well for me. Was syncing via nextcloud for a long time but syncthing is way easier to manage and more bulletproof as long as you configure it correctly
I do this with “Markor”, great notes app for txt and md files. All files locally and synced via Syncthing. Been using this for years, love it.
I gotta try Markor. Been using Zettel Notes as a frontend to Obsidian/syncthing because they have postit widgets, and I need 4 on my home screen
Obsidian is great. I believe syncing is an extra cost though.
Unfortunately not FOSS
Just downloaded it and opened it and the first thing it does is to ask me for a “notes folder” with .md files, which I don’t have. I just wanted to try it by writing notes.
Try creating a blank folder and open it that way. Does it let you in after that?
Excellent. Thank you. But using an online AI provider to me seems against the stated goals. I know online is the preferred option for most people, but you should provide them alongside connecting to a local server.
It says it supports ollama (local)
AI Actions
Improve writing, summarize, translate. Runs locally with Ollama, or use your own API key. Your data stays yours.
Please, please, add forgejo integration for sync provider.
I use Forgejo with Helixnotes. But I sync with the App PuppyGit.
I’ll try PuppyGit. I wish GitNex had this feature.
This looks like the slightly less bloated Logseq/Obsidian I’ve been dying for!
Genuinely curious what bloat does Obsidian come with? But yeah my first thought too was FOSS Obsidian
Personally I have only a hundred notes or so and really only the basic plugins and it still takes up to 10 seconds to load and become usable on my phone.
It is definitely not fast loading up but it is very fast in most other use cases I have seen. At work I use it with getting more towards 1000 notes and it works fine there usually, though there is some windows+ electron weirdness
Electron runtime in general. It seems all of the popular cross platform note taking / knowledge garden apps are electron.
I long so much for a native version that I started learning QTQuick to do just this.
Electron = bloat. That’s why HelixNotes is Tauri.
Oh, hey, I saw your repo is stall for months and I thought your project go south. So you finally satisfied with your gui speed after rewritten? Good to see you make it, congrats. Already find a job? You should really design a good plugin sys with py, to expand more interactive data type. Let me know if you want to hear more.
Is this the Google Keep replacement we’ve all been waiting for?
Naw no decent widget on android
boooo
Personally I’m comfortable on Notesnook and tbh I trust them more
I still use Simple note.
While I’d prefer one that isn’t owned by the same people as WordPress and not sync to their cloud, it is open source and free. I figure it beats Google or MS notes, and don’t have to manage syncing all the files. No AI nonsense either (at least for now)
Easy for shopping lists and jotting stuff down, there’s an app for all the major OSs. I definitely don’t trust it for anything important or sensitive.
Is there an option to make check boxes for shopping lists? I cant find one.
Edit - yes there is. I found it.
Light mode - what’s wrong with you? /s (but not really).
Im old lol
If - hypothetically - you were trying to convince me that this is better than Notesnook, what would your pitch be?
Since you’re using Notesnook, I’m guessing you strongly care about your privacy and data security. Notesnook encrypts your notes before they leave which is great, but with HelixNotes, there’s nothing to intercept in the first place. Your notes live on your device. You decide if they ever go anywhere. In addition to that, HelixNotes is free with no account creation.
I guess I should specify that I’m selfhosting Notesnook, so the data never leaves my personal device ecosystem, and the central sync server is a big plus for me. No account required either (apart from the ones I create on the server I control).
