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Ask HN: Good Alternatives to One Note

by atiredturte on 5/13/19, 4:16 AM with 18 comments

I've used a variety of different softwares for my organisation systems, but they all seem to be lacking. One note seems to be the only one that works, but their sync issues are so bad that it makes editing from multiple devices painful as hell.

I have 3 main functionalities that I am searching for: 1. Allow me to organise my pages (rules out Evernote) 2. Has table functionality (rules out notion) 3. Can be used on the phone (rules out desktop-only solutions)

I've been looking for ages and have found nothing that suits.

If anyone has something that fits this description, it would be a game changer for me.

  • by anoncake on 5/13/19, 5:54 PM

    I use Org. It's part of Emacs, which you may consider either a dealbreaker or a feature.

    While Emacs itself does not really work on mobile (unless you run it in a terminal), there is a companion app for Android called Orgzly. Unfortunately it is quite limited. For example, it does not support tables. (Since Org files are plain text, you can view and technically edit them, but the latter is a pain.) It's good enough for taking quick notes so you don't forget them and to look at existing ones.

    For syncing, I use Syncthing, which works flawlessly. Conflicts have to be resolved manually though. Orgzly also has built-in support for syncing via Dropbox. I've never used it as it involves manually pulling and pushing to the server as in a VCS rather than working in the background.

  • by superlepton on 5/13/19, 10:36 AM

    Would Simplenote suit your needs? It supports markdown so it should be possible to create tables, although I did not try it.

  • by ssorc on 5/13/19, 7:16 AM

    Notion has tables; is there specific table functionality you need that they don’t offer?

    https://www.keepproductive.com/blog/notion-tables

  • by tajstar on 5/13/19, 2:47 PM

    I would give https://coda.io/welcome a try it should meet all the criteria that you mentioned. I use it on the daily.

  • by ducatdusk on 5/14/19, 9:05 AM

    You've not said what platform you primarily work with but if you use MacOS/iOS then I can highly recommend DevonTHINK.

  • by sandreas on 5/13/19, 5:17 AM

    Perhaps Typora? (https://typora.io/)

  • by DoreenMichele on 5/13/19, 5:20 AM

    Private blogspot blog. You can add tables with a little HTML and CSS.

  • by s_m on 5/13/19, 6:29 PM

    Google Docs?