[HN Gopher] Show HN: NotesHub: cross-platform, Markdown-based no...
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Show HN: NotesHub: cross-platform, Markdown-based note-taking app
Thank you for your comments, just some context: - The app is
available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, and the
Web. - The Web version is implemented as a Progressive Web
Application that is very responsive, local first, offline first,
can be installed, and is entirely free to use. - Native (hybrid)
versions do not require subscription fees and have small one-time
payment. - You can store your notes in Git using any Git provider
such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. However, it has the best
built-in integration with GitHub. Self-hosted scenarios like Gitea
are also supported. In addition to Git, you can store your notes in
a file system and iCloud Drive on Apple Devices. - It has a rich
Markdown syntax support with added extensions like Mermaid, ABC
music notation, callouts, etc. In addition to regular Markdown
notes, you can create Kanban boards for easy task management (under
the hood, it is still stored in Markdown). If that is not enough,
you can create whiteboards based on Excalidraw and embed them back
into your notes.
Author : alex-titarenko
Score : 119 points
Date : 2024-10-11 12:37 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.noteshub.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.noteshub.app)
| rcarmo wrote:
| I don't get why iOS doesn't have filesystem notebooks on the
| comparison table.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| The fact that iOS doesn't really have a real filesystem you can
| use, would be my guess.
| rcarmo wrote:
| As someone who regularly uses vim inside iOS to edit files
| from another application and syncs the whole lot via
| SyncThing, I beg to differ.
|
| From a filesystem perspective, it's no different from jails
| or container mount points.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| As someone who left iOS for Android because of that, I was
| pleasantly surprised - when I went back - to find that iOS
| now has a Files app for managing files on the device and also
| network shares.
|
| iOS has definitely improved in that area and definitely now
| has a filesystem.
| jedberg wrote:
| It has iCloud Drive instead, which is the closest equivalent to
| a filesystem on iOS
| rcarmo wrote:
| So you can't use other file providers? That tech is really
| stable now, I've been using it for years to edit a git repo
| inside Working Copy or files inside other apps using yet
| another set of apps (Textastic, iA Writer, even vim inside
| a-Shell). You should really consider reviewing that
| viewpoint.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| This might be an unpopular take, but I'm tired of all these
| Markdown text editors. It almost feels like a cop-out at this
| point. Ever since text editors started supporting Markdown, we've
| gotten away from all of these great rich-text editors. Apple
| Notes is an example of a notetaking application "done right",
| albeit with fewer features. It's enjoyable to use and offers good
| UI for attaching files. It certainly is not without its flaws,
| however. Obsidian gets really close. I bet the devs could go all
| the way.
|
| I want something WYSIWYG-like, without dealing with the
| underlying mechanisms... give me rich-text on the front and save
| the file in Markdown behind the scenes. I hardly care, as long as
| there is a robust export option built-in.
|
| </end rant>
| threetonesun wrote:
| Bear with "hide Markdown" checked pretty much gets you there,
| if only on Apple devices.
|
| Markdown vs. Rich Text to me is less about the editing
| experience and more about do you want your files aligned to a
| file system or not. The options are either:
|
| - rich text editor with files that only make sense to a single
| application. - rich text editor with no files but (hopefully)
| some way to export them to (hopefully) compatible formats. -
| text files in a folder than can be read / edited by almost
| anything, with the editing experience tied to your application
| of choice.
| emaro wrote:
| I can understand that. There're so many Markdown editors,
| choice paralysis easily kicks in.
|
| Markdown ist basically a must have for me though, because I
| know most applications will be outlived by my notes, and I want
| to be able to move on to a different editor. To try a new one,
| or even use multiple at the same time (say, on my phone and on
| my computer), it's unacceptable for me if I have to export and
| import all my notes first and risking diverging branches.
|
| In general I think taking notes is a very personal thing many
| people do every day and they're looking for an app fitting
| their exact workflow. That's why there are so many options. I
| was considering writing my own one several times already,
| although it's probably not worth the time.
| jandrese wrote:
| The one thing that annoys me is that Markdown is not highly
| standardized. Seems like every implementation is its own
| dialect and feature support varies quite a bit.
| input_sh wrote:
| Yeah that's what happens when you come up with a "standard"
| and then forget about it for two decades.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| > because I know most applications will be outlived by my
| notes
|
| A robust export option is what we're all looking for here.
|
| > taking notes is a very personal thing
|
| I agree with that.
| great_kraken wrote:
| Joplin supports editing in WYSIWYG with formatting tools and
| saving markdown on the backend, or swapping to the markdown
| editor whenever you want to edit that way.
| thecodrr wrote:
| You might want to give Notesnook [0] a try.
|
| [0]: https://notesnook.com/
| askafriend wrote:
| Apple Notes is the greatest note taking app of all time.
|
| I literally don't need anything else.
| WillAdams wrote:
| For folks who buy into the Apple eco-system perhaps --- I'd
| consider it if it were possible to view/edit notes made in it
| on my MacBook using a Wacom One screen on my Samsung Galaxy
| Note 10+ --- bonus would be if they could get Amazon to put
| it on the Kindle Scribe.
| lawgimenez wrote:
| Apple notes has been lagging and crashing a lot. So annoying
| since it is my most used app.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Obsidian's WYSIWYG editor is excellent and amazingly
| featureful. I use it for hours every day, only ever in "edit"
| mode w/ "live preview", just a couple plugins enabled, and it's
| by _far_ the best interface to markdown I 've encountered.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| I agree, which is why I use it. But there are a few quirks
| that rely on on reading mode.
| vuldin wrote:
| This looks good, but in order for me to try this it would need vi
| support and a Linux install option.
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| A closed source note-taking app is also a questionable decision
| regardless. The app looks impressive in terms of features,
| which is actually a con because you may not be able to find an
| alternative when the time comes and you can no longer use it
| for any reason.
| w0m wrote:
| tbf; all data stored in markdown theoretically solves that.
|
| I currently use Foam on VSCode for notetakng / personal
| project management. But 2/3rds of my actual typing tends to
| be inside NeoVim following the foam format (vscode vs vim on
| the day is determined more by what i'm working on that day vs
| anything else). I'm constantly on the lookout for a better*
| system; but haven't found one yet as sometimes I want a UI;
| but Grep and quick jots inside the terminal is just very
| useful.
| ttul wrote:
| I think you might be in the top 0.03% of people who use note
| taking apps!
| w0m wrote:
| ha, NGL my thought exactly. Maybe ship also as a VSCode
| extension?
| bbor wrote:
| A) Wow this is just incredibly impressive for a solo dev - well
| done! The feature list just keeps going and going, by the time I
| got to kanban boards I was in disbelief. I was incredibly dubious
| based on the title that any "Show HN" could rival Obsidian, but i
| think I stand corrected!
|
| I sadly use my own hand-rolled markdown system way too often to
| really switch, but I'll definitely have to check this out for an
| on-the-go replacement for Google Keep.
|
| B) "offline first" is a great feature, but I'm curious why you
| didn't go with the terms hear more often, "local first"? Just
| wanted something more accessible to laypeople?
|
| C) "offline first" seems hard to match up with "progressive web
| app" -- not from any sort of user perspective (sounds ideal,
| even!), just in terms of technical implementation. Am I correct
| in assuming that the iOS and android versions are PWAs, and that
| they still durably store files on device? If so, how hard was
| that?
|
| D) "all major platforms: iOS/macOS/Android/Windows" made me shed
| a brief tear. It's ~~infrastructure~~ Linux Week, time to add a
| platform!!
|
| Best of luck and thanks for sharing your work. I look forward to
| meeting you on top of the world one day ;)
| reacharavindh wrote:
| Oh I like the web version! I just hooked up the web app to my
| _public_ blog repo, and started editing the markdown files. Hit
| save and it automatically performs a git commit on my behalf.
| Perfect. Next time I'm working on the files locally, all I need
| is a git pull and I am good to go. I like it.
|
| Although I didnt quite like that it asked for a permission to
| pretty much _everything_ in Githuhb - public and private repos,
| deploykeys?!, everything. I wish that were customisable. It was
| okay for me because I dont keep any non public code in Github,
| but others might have..
| kseistrup wrote:
| The FAQ has the following instructions for more fine-grained
| access control:
|
| > To accomplish this scenario select generic Git notebook
| provider (instead of GitHub) and for the password field put
| fine-grained personal access token which can be generated to
| have access only to certain repositories.
| amimetic wrote:
| I tried this and doesn't seem to work; though unclear what
| permissions I should be granting it, so possibly that is the
| issue.
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| You need only "Contents" Read and write permissions. Make
| sure when you generate fine-grained personal access tokens
| on the following page:
| https://github.com/settings/personal-access-tokens/new you
| select your desired repo (because it defaults to public
| repos and that will not work).
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| Unfortunately, GitHub does not provide that granularity for
| developers. That is way you have an alternative option as
| general Git provider where you can use fine-grained access
| token.
| emmanueloga_ wrote:
| Can you share a bit about the tech behind this? Are the desktop
| apps electron apps or something else?
|
| Thx!
| awill wrote:
| that's always my first thought. Do I need 64GB of RAM to run
| this note app? :)
| cloverich wrote:
| Try checking the memory usage of Apple notes, if you use it.
| I was shocked how high it was.
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| Windows version is Electon-based, but not really hungry for
| resources. MacOS is not Electron-based.
| ttul wrote:
| I have grown to love markdown in the past year. It is just
| expressive enough without being burdensomely complex. I
| appreciate the ability to switch between WYSIWYG and plain text
| editing modes to achieve precision. In contrast to pure-WYSIWYG
| editors like Google Docs, the formatting can't get totally hosed
| in markdown because you can always dip under the hood and fix
| stuff.
|
| I just wish every rich text editor had accessible markdown...
| WillAdams wrote:
| Microsoft Word having a Markdown mode would be _huge_.
|
| If I were still using it regularly I'd put one together using
| WordBASIC/VBAscript.
| awill wrote:
| What does native (hybrid) mean?
| invaliduser wrote:
| That's when the native Android or iOS app is basically a
| webview displaying the web app (either served locally or from
| the website)
| awill wrote:
| That's not really native in my book.
| invaliduser wrote:
| That's why it's called hybrid I guess
| dbacar wrote:
| what is the license? Always free? One day might cost you?
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| The web version is free, native versions have small one-time
| fee.
| xz18r wrote:
| I am on a Macbook where I'm not signed in with an Apple ID (let
| alone my own), can I buy the app for my private devices and
| install it somehow on my work Macbook?
| danudey wrote:
| If you copy the app over to your work Macbook it should ask you
| to authenticate to the App Store when you try to launch it so
| that it can validate your license. IIRC this doesn't cause it
| to save that login to the app store but just does a one-off
| authentication for that app.
|
| YMMV, but this is my recollection.
| joshdavham wrote:
| Is the source code available anywhere, by chance? I'm curious how
| it was built.
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| It's not open sourced. You can look at Settings -> Third-party
| Licenses to see what libraries are in use.
| proee wrote:
| Nice product and website. Your homepage uses a lot of passive
| voice. Personally I think changing it to active voice makes the
| product sound more appealing.
|
| "your notes will always be" -> "your notes are always" "content
| will be synced" -> "content is synced"
|
| "note will be periodically synced" -> "notes are periodically
| synced" "You can use it for managing personal tasks..." ->
| "Manage your personal tasks..."
|
| "You can choose between light and dark" -> "Choose between light
| and dark"
| teraflop wrote:
| Nitpick: that's not what "active voice" means.
|
| The active voice equivalent of "content will be synced" would
| be "NotesHub will sync your content".
| cscheid wrote:
| Dropping passive voice helps most writing, but
|
| > "content will be synced" -> "content is synced"
|
| FYI that's still passive voice.
| j_bum wrote:
| To quickly determine passive vs. active voice, you can add
| the phrase, "by zombies" to the end of the sentence.
|
| If it's clear the zombies are doing the action (subject),
| then the content is passive voice. Otherwise, if the zombies
| are an adverbial phrase, the sentence is in active voice.
|
| _Passive voice:_ "Content is synced by zombies"
|
| _Active voice:_ "NotesHub syncs the content by zombies"
| rangerelf wrote:
| "Thanks" for making me spit my coffee, that's hilarious but
| awesome; I _will_ be using it in the future. :-D
| j_bum wrote:
| Glad you liked it :)
|
| When I started grad school and was learning how to write
| effectively, I struggled with passive/active voice
| differentiation... until I learned the zombies tip. It's
| so absurd that you can't forget it, and it's simple
| enough to differentiate the two in a split second!
| HiPHInch wrote:
| People seem interested in this. But I still wonder what is the
| advantage over Obsidian.
| WillAdams wrote:
| Pay once pricing?
|
| A really interesting feature would be the ability to post to
| your own host --- the publishing aspect is the one thing which
| has me seriously contemplating Obsidian, but I'm so deep into
| gitbook and github I haven't been able to justify a cost-
| benefit calculation.
| marcuskaz wrote:
| NotesHub is one-time payment of $4 and Obsidian is $50/yr
| hanifc wrote:
| What does the $50 get you with Obsidian? I don't pay, and I'm
| able to access my notes from my desktop and mobile apps.
| dtkav wrote:
| Obsidian is free for individual use. The $50/yr is a
| commercial license. They also have a $4/month sync product
| (sync across devices with e2e encryption), but you can use
| icloud, google drive, etc too.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| Without having tried both side by side, pricing is an
| advantage.
| accra4rx wrote:
| In Obsidian , you can even sync to github or dropbox with
| community plugins . so price wise it is free Also Obsidian has
| much better search (using community plugin) which is lacking in
| noteshub
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| Obsidian's git sync has many issues, at least, this is what I
| hear from my customers who used both products. Search in
| NotesHub is also robust, please read here:
| https://about.noteshub.app/blog/archive/2024/7/noteshub-34
| dtkav wrote:
| The plugin ecosystem is amazing.
|
| I wrote a plugin called Relay that makes obsidian multiplayer
| with live collaboration (using CRDTs), and there are a few
| others in the space too.
|
| Obsidian sync is also great for e2e encrypted sync for your
| own devices if you don't want to rely on third parties like
| GitHub.
| vunderba wrote:
| +1 on the third party search. Quick Switcher plugin lets you
| bring up a hotkeyed modal to search across all note
| titles/headings/subheadings/tags all in a single fast search
| interface.
|
| https://github.com/tadashi-aikawa/obsidian-another-quick-
| swi...
| superbforme wrote:
| The app being the in store for mac and ios, I stopped using
| obsidian when they removed the app from the mac store and only
| allowed it for ios.
|
| I need the sandbox, for bussiness is a no brainer, allow some
| apps from the store, give the right permissions, done and for
| me personally, I don't use anything that doesn't come from the
| store, even if I can download the app freely from the project
| page, a few bucks for the sandbox and peace of mind is worth it
| to me.
|
| I donated to Obsidian because I liked the project in general, I
| dislike the way they distribute the app in all platforms
| outside of ios, ex, snap with --classic rendering the attempt
| to sandbox it useless.
|
| Edit ---
|
| Reading some comments, it's pretty obvious that a lot of people
| even install third party plugins, on an app that is about
| taking personal notes, it's refreshing to see how much people
| care about cybersecurity and their personal, business notes.
| 4k93n2 wrote:
| less decision fatigue
| ndimares wrote:
| Anotha one
| mdhb wrote:
| Just out of curiosity is this a Flutter app and if so how did you
| find the experience of using it to develop a cross platform app?
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| It's not a Flutter app. It's a React-based app.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| I keep my todos in markdown checklist boxes. I generate a dayplan
| with chatgpt and I ask for output in markdown. Just copy and
| paste it. I now use typora.. but I'll check out your app later.
| jedberg wrote:
| Anyone got a good tutorial on switching from Evernote?
| aiono wrote:
| Looks nice, but what advantage it has over Obsidian or Zettlr?
| Maybe Obsidian is more expensive but Zettlr is free and also
| FOSS.
| lormayna wrote:
| Do you have a self-hosting version?
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| No
| ukuina wrote:
| Hey, awesome, clean Material design!
|
| Are notes held on disk unencrypted?
| aanet wrote:
| Fantastic app, good, clean design, and a very useful use-case. I
| can see myself using it.
|
| However, a few questions:
|
| 1. Can I self-host it? If so, how? 2. Can I connect to a
| "private" Github repo? (I dont want my personal notes publicly
| viewable, unless I choose so) 3. What's the pricing model? Wasn't
| entirely clear.
|
| Thanks!!
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| You can't self-host it. Yes, you can connect to "private"
| GitHub repo. Pricing model is one time payment for native apps
| and free web app.
| ukuina wrote:
| Can you provide more detail on connecting to a "private"
| GitHub repo?
|
| The FAQ says "To accomplish this scenario select generic Git
| notebook provider (instead of GitHub) and for the password
| field put fine-grained personal access token which can be
| generated to have access only to certain repositories."
|
| I created a PAT with EVERY permission within a selected repo,
| to the fullest-extent allowed by the fine-grained PAT, but
| still see "An unhandled error occured, please try again" when
| setting it up within NotesHub.
| amimetic wrote:
| I didn't go that far (every permission) but had the same
| experience.
| maelito wrote:
| Thanks ! Wonderful alternative to gitjournal.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| Looks great, just wish it had end-to-end-encryption.
|
| I made a quite similar app with some other features that are a
| personal must-have which this one lacks.
| Towaway69 wrote:
| I'm a big fan of iA Writer - it basically does everything I need.
| The best part is its clean interface - just a white screen and
| cursor.
|
| Markdown based with HTML templates to allow for different
| appearance when converted to PDF. It also has cross references to
| other files, so that long documents can be broken down into
| separate files.
|
| It doesn't have all the features that NotesHub has - hats off to
| that and I hope NotesHub becomes a success.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| It seems the creator has been a senior SWE at Microsoft for 7
| years now.
|
| It genuinely astounds me that as a solo dev he can make such a
| featureful app yet Microsoft the company has been failing hard in
| this realm for the last decade.
|
| Also it makes you wonder how many UI-design teams, product
| owners, and middle managers are entirely obsolete next to a
| single competent SWE with a bit of talent for UI/UX.
| dewey wrote:
| It's not that surprising, it's just different priorities. If a
| company would prioritize "Let's build a featureful note-taking
| app", they'll also get it done. But there's usually a lot of
| different priorities that are higher than building yet another
| app for the platform.
| tinkrr wrote:
| OneNote is a pretty decent note taking app.
| alternatex wrote:
| Although I agree with your observation wholeheartedly, it
| should be obvious that shipping something at Microsoft is way
| more involved than shipping a hobby project. Just security and
| privacy compliance is half the work.
|
| That Microsoft is just not good at building consumer-facing
| software in general is hard to deny though.
| slightwinder wrote:
| > It genuinely astounds me that as a solo dev he can make such
| a featureful app
|
| It's a very generic webstack-app, build on 3rd-party-
| components. It's quite easy doing something on this level these
| days for an experienced developer.
|
| > yet Microsoft the company has been failing hard in this realm
| for the last decade.
|
| Did they? They are a company, so they have a different aim than
| a solo dev doing some hobby-project, or whatever this is. But
| quality-wise, their other apps build on webstack are not worse
| than this. It's more that they are old, with old apps, and they
| seem to have some internal struggles finding their way. Which
| is probably why they went back and forth with OneNote, and why
| it sucks so hard at certain parts.
| novoreorx wrote:
| This is a really nice product. The web version reminds me of
| Prose [^1], which introduced the concept of writing in a GitHub
| repo online since 2013.
|
| For those asking about the advantages of NotesHub over Obsidian,
| this app offers a web version--a feature I have long wished
| Obsidian would provide.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/prose/prose
| stonogo wrote:
| The website leans hard on "fully cross-platform" for a program
| that clearly isn't.
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| If you are talking about Linux, you can use the Web version,
| which is Progressive Web Application, works offline and can be
| installed.
| tinkrr wrote:
| It seems like you re-use the code from the web app to create the
| hybrid mobile apps.
|
| Which tool / framework do you use to achieve this?
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| I don't rely on any external framework like Capacitor to make
| hybrid apps, all of the bridging between web and native part is
| done by myself.
| ponytech wrote:
| I have been an Evernote, then Notion and now a Jopplin user. A
| feature I used a lot in these apps is the browser extension that
| allows me to quickly bookmark a web page into a note. Would you
| consider such a feature?
| TripleChecker wrote:
| Useful product. Are you planning to add integration with self-
| hosted Gitlab?
|
| There are a few typos on the site you might want to review:
| https://triplechecker.com/s/259685/about.noteshub.app?v=rLAc...
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| Thank you for types reporting, fixed all of them. Regarding
| self-hosted Gitlab, you can already use it with generic Git
| notebook provider.
| eagleinparadise wrote:
| It looks like the keyboard shortcut Cmd-L conflicts with Arc
| browser in the web app.
|
| Looks great otherwise!
|
| Are there plans for plugins and so forth ala obsidian? For
| instance, it would be great to have a
| daily/monthly/quarterly/yearly note and what not.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| I will definitely check this out. I love that syncing can be
| self-hosted, that it supports LaTeX for math, and even music
| notation. The one additional thing I would love in a text-based
| note-taking app is some kind of mind-mapping software. I still
| have an old copy of Mindnode on my Mac, and there are times where
| it is the perfect solution. I am a little disappointed that the
| Linux story is weak.
| alex-titarenko wrote:
| NotesHub has support of Mermaid diagrams that has mind-mapping.
| Or you can use Whiteboarding functionality to mimic mind-maps.
| miles wrote:
| Thank you for crafting and sharing this. Have been looking for a
| modern MacDown[0] replacement, and this fit the bill nicely.
| Especially appreciate the reasonable, one-time cost and support
| for local storage.
|
| The "Key Features" section mentions "Export notes to PDF"; please
| consider adding an "Export notes to HTML" option. Custom theme
| support for the preview pane via CSS would be helpful too.
|
| [0] https://macdown.uranusjr.com
| vunderba wrote:
| I like the look of this a lot, and the support for music notation
| is a nice touch.
|
| It also sounds like NotesHub might have better out-of-the-box
| syncing options than Obsidian. Personally, I sync obsidian to a
| Gitea hosted on a VPS and it works great but that's
| understandably well beyond what a casual user is going to be
| willing to do.
|
| The big limitation I'm seeing over competitive alternatives (such
| as _obsidian, logseq, or joplin_ ) is the lack of plug-in
| support. A robust and passionate community can help flesh out
| features that otherwise might never be realized particularly with
| a small dev team.
|
| In fact I was just curious so I did a quick search in the
| Community Plugin section in Obsidian and there's already a plugin
| to render ABC notation.
|
| https://github.com/abcjs-music/obsidian-plugin-abcjs
| nickfixit wrote:
| Wish I could convert my obsidian data over to check it all out.
| Also themes. Having themes makes it enjoyable to make notes.
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