You probably should give https://triliumnotes.org/ a shot,

on the surface, it's a boring hierarchical note taking app, and you can use it just as one, keeping things simple. But then, you can jump into the rabbit hole and figure out how attributes, templates and properties inheritance can give your notes a structure, be organized as collections, and become a very dependable PKMS.

I personally settled on Trilium after a long search for a PKMS to fit my needs, including Obsidian, LogSeq and many others. My top criteria were:

- I need typed notes: if I'm set to maintain long references of People, Places, Movies, … I want the system to keep track of types, attributes, and relations, just like a RDBMS would. In practice, many systems fail at that and give you a ton of maintenance work just to keep your knowledge base consistent, well-structured and usable

- I need something that syncs with my server at home, and lets me work offline when needed. Trilium client app does that without fuss nor requires subscription/premium/membership.

- I need r/w access to my notes on devices which I don't own (e.g. a work computer), so a fully-featured and secure web version with MFA must exist as an alternative to a client application, and again, Trilium delivers there.

I've been daily-driving Trilium for almost 3 years now, and I haven't stumbled upon an alternative with envy. OTOH, Trilium got (much) refined and gained lots of clever features.

I probably sound like the fan that I am, but you can have a look by yourself at https://app.triliumnotes.org/

I tried using Bear many years ago. My issue with it was that while it was using markdown to format, everything is locked away in a SQLite DB, which kills a significant benefit of markdown notes.

I like Obsidian because it’s just stores a folder full of markdown files, and I can read/edit those files with whatever I want. It feels like a lot less lock-in than with Bear.

I have built a lightweight, note taking application that focuses on quick note taking, and fully keyboard based usage. Notes are all one liner, and it supports minimum Markdown, you can manage tasks, reminders, do inline calculations, unlimited undo/redo. You can organize notes by project and categories.

https://mtarin.com/projects/nift/

Core point is simplicity, and frictionless note taking, and high performance, my dev version, can work with 12k notes without any issues.

Data is stored as text file.

Demo version is also available

I am looking for feedback, and wondering what would make people actually interested to buying this.

It's completely hand written, no AI assisted code.

There's also Reflect with Reflect-Open:

https://reflect.app/

https://github.com/team-reflect/reflect-open

Original HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35303670

I use Typora, although it’s not “knowledge management” beyond a basic Markdown editor with a file tree.

hello org-mode friend! I've been on a similar journey and over the last month I've just been vibe building a replacement for logseq. So far: native macOS, high polish (I was a Bear user before logseq), and uses pi-durable so I can launch an agent from any line.

I use Zettlr as a front end to Markdown notes. It's similar to Obsidian, but works better for me, since I do a fair amount of academic work right now.

dont do any knowledge managment. you'll be fine.

Nuclino is pretty nice.

Joplin is another option, if you want a FOSS OneNote replacement

Interesting — I'd say the editor is actually Bear's weakest spot. I keep fighting it all the time and wish it didn't try to do things "automagically" for me.

For example, editing a set of tags causes endless frustration. I can never guess what the tool will do next or what it expects me to do.

> I'm gradually replacing most of the software I use with software I conjure myself

Why?

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I think the moat is taste and polish. You can practically one-shot the first 80%, but the other 20% can take a long time, and the last 1% can be even longer.

If you want the basics, sure. If you want a well-polished app with no sharp edges, I think we're still not there yet.

99% of Americans are going going to build a custom version of this application in an hour.

so you replaced obsidian with a version of obsidian without sync?

Why did you take the name of the app you want to compete with? Isn’t that just a little disingenuous?

Feels a lot like iA Writer: https://ia.net/

Bear has an MCP server. I’ve used it to push transcriptions into the app and search it later.

I built a free 4MB native markdown reader/editor for mac. its free, source available, with really nice design. Can be your default md reader so you can just double click to open md files.

app store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/nano-md/id6826107962

website for github and direct download:https://nano.thirdeyeds.com

I've been using https://davidhoo.github.io/MarkdownReader/en/ lately and like it a lot, especially the Quick Look previews and the "mdr" tool to open files or directories.

It even lets you switch to "Source Mode" for quick edits.

I thought this was about a literal bear. Then again 10 years is not much of an age even for a wild bear.

I was expecting https://github.com/rizsotto/Bear

The subscription model is probably the main reason I turned from Bear to Typora (which is available via one-time payment and doesn't even require an Apple ID).

I've been using Bear for a long time. I tried Obsidian to move off Bear, but it didn't last long. The Bear UX is just great and that's what's kept me around this long.

I use both Bear and Obsidian. I do some long-form writing in Bear but keep all of my structured notes and markdown in Obsidian. Obsidian has much better tooling and many more features, but Bear has a very pleasant experience for writing. It's very simple but if it's all you need it's very polished.

If I had to choose one I'd use Obsidian because Bear's features are a subset of what Obsidian does, but Bear is still nice.

Obsidian is not open source.

You are probably thinking of https://joplinapp.org if you thought of open source and Joplin also stores note in a db and it does something worse, it even names the files as UUID (last time I checked).

Obsidian is a closed source Obsidian.

I pay for Bear because it’s a native app and not in the weird uncanny valley of Electron apps that almost feel native until you hit the rough edges. It syncs with iCloud. It supports Shortcuts. It’s as responsive to keystrokes and keyboard shortcuts as any other Mac app. Basically, it just feels good to me and I enjoy using it.

Obsidian’s awesome. It’s also an ADHD tarpit for me. I can way too easily get distracted into optimizing my workflow instead of, you know, just typing notes into it. That’s a me problem, not a them problem. I don’t mean it as a criticism against Obsidian. It’s just not the right tool for me.

Easily the best Markdown editor. I hate all rich-text editors except Bear.

Images appear as thumbnails in the notes-list.

Minimal tags-first organization, rather than Obsidians poorly thought out mix of files and tags.

...and that's it. It's the only app that has never given me any reason to switch in ~10 years.

I thought it was pretty clear?

> Back in 2013, three friends who loved Apple and design couldn’t find a notes app they liked, so they built their own. That side project became Bear.

Agreed! You’d have to navigate to the top level on the site…

“Bear is a beautiful, powerfully simple Markdown note taking app to capture, write, and organize your life.”

https://bear.app/

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