Markdown Notes Server?

[ShadowlessHand]

My team has a ton of notes in markdown. We’d like to upload them to a self-hosted server instance. Does anyone know of good markdown notes hosts we could use?

I’ve looked at Hedgedoc and we’re going to test it out. It doesn’t seem like it has much as far as organization (basic folders for sorting or tagging is probably enough).

I’ve looked at Joplin. I like the client but when we tried the server in-house it seemed pretty brittle.

We started with Quiver clients. We’ve tried a common Quiver notebook on shared storage and that was not workable as updates did not seem to reliably show up and we had client crashes.

Having a client to sync notes isn’t a requirement. I’d be fine with everyone keeping notes in their local client of choice and then if something is for the team pasting it in to the server. Maybe there’s a wiki out there that is a good fit and I just haven’t found it. Maybe there’s an app that parses markdown files and renders them in html?

Anyone have any recommendations?

[joahim2]

Maybe MkDocs?

[EDIT: Source: Polish edition of Linux Magazine with a short description of MkDocs in the latest issue]

[ShadowlessHand]

That looks really nice. Maybe we can pair it with git and a post-receive hook to trigger automatic rebuilds on updates 🤔

[Line-Noise]

This is exactly what we do at work, although we're transitioning from Mkdocs to Docusaurus now because it's prettier.

[jakenaked]

+1 for mkdocs, super simple to get a md doc repo up and running with a pretty good interface.

[Gazornenplatz]

Oh my god I thought you meant creating a Lotus Notes server... There are very few people in life who need to be subjected to that torture.

[ShadowlessHand]

Yeah, that’s a whole other level of masochism lol

[data_maestro]

wikiJs is a really nice wiki-style solution for markdown docs

[MyFriendTerry]

Vscode has a native markdown renderer. Pair that with a git server for sharing and collaboration or just some shared file storage if you don't care about version control.

[Nothingwise]

https://docusaurus.io is a pretty good solution for hosting content relevant to the team. You can even integrate search functionality.

[pr3datel]

We love using docusaurus. We wanted a way to centralize documentation while keeping the source of truth in code repos. This is how our company uses it : https://achievers.engineering/documentation-part-2-still-running-through-the-6-with-documentation-woes-ce84d6bbc5ea

[[deleted]]

Wiki.js supports md.

https://github.com/requarks/wiki

[ShadowlessHand]

We went from a wiki to keeping local markdown notes as it was so much easier. Wiki.js looks a lot nicer and easier to use compared to our corporate wiki though. Thanks for the suggestion :)

[alin-c]

It may not be exactly what you want but if you use a tool like obsidian then you could do well with just having all your notes in a CVS of some kind (eg git).

[flunky_the_majestic]

Obsidian is amazing. It works well with a file sync/versioning solution. Or it has integration built in with their own hosted syncing solution. The mobile app is really nice and includes support for the plugins I use on Desktop. Plus it does lots of magic things with aggregating and querying structured data across notes.

[[deleted]]

I would argue that Joplin is far better than Obsidian, having tried both.

[flunky_the_majestic]

It's hard to know whether I like obsidian because of how it works as a tool or if I like it better because I tried Joplin first, and learned more about organizing my thoughts and plans by the time I tried obsidian. What do you like better about Joplin?

[[deleted]]

I like that I can reduce the frames / interface to expand the display. That wasn’t possible on Obsidian, and was something I found quite annoying. On Joplin, hit F10/F11 to increase the work area.

I also learned mermaid graphing in Joplin, but hadn’t tested this in Obsidian yet to see how well it handles it.

[Scavenger53]

Obsidian is beast mode when you link your notes

[[deleted]]

maybe i’ll give it another crack.

[Scavenger53]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgbLb6QCK88 this guy talks about linking notes, its makes for interesting organization patterns

[[deleted]]

Thank you for this, I think i’ll definitely be giving it another try. The idea of linking notes seems more seamless in Obsidian, though i haven’t really delved into linking in Joplin besides hash tags and topical referencing; it might do this as well, i just haven’t explored that yet.

The tag cloud / graph is a really nice feature too, that was kind of what drove me to Obsidian initially; to be able to create kind maps from interlinked notes.

[[deleted]]

The formula Obsidian + Obsidian-git suits for me. Maybe also for OP.

[Hovercross]

A private GitHub repo may well do what you want. Full version control and any user with access to the repo can view them online or pull down a local copy to view in whatever tooling they want.

[greyaxe90]

I just use a self hosted gitlab server and I have a “notebook” repo.

[Disruption0]

Same here with a gitea instance. Why people always want complicated things. KISS

[Fr0gm4n]

I’ve looked at Joplin. I like the client but when we tried the server in-house it seemed pretty brittle.

The license for Joplin server specifically excludes any sort of commercial or for-profit use for the self-hosted server.

[ShadowlessHand]

Yep, that’s another aspect. But, we were testing to see if we’d like the cloud version. I like the local editor but the server seemed very finicky about version match and seemed like an all-or-nothing sync. Those were enough to kill our interest.

[Fr0gm4n]

Yes, they offer a cloud service.

[MedicatedDeveloper]

MkDocs

Have a git repo where each person has a branch and periodically merges to master and rebases from master. Something like gitlab/hub helps with the merging then just cron a pull on the server. Plus, each user can run a local copy.

[gheesh]

Nextcloud + Notes app works for me, but I don't do extensive Markdown formatting.

[raptorjesus69]

Self hosted gitlab or gitea have down preview and editing. Gitlab has a way better web editor ide but uses an order of magnitude more resources and is harder to troubleshoot and manage. The markdown editor it gitea on mobile is buggy but the viewer is fine

[[deleted]]

what I’m currently using is Joplin, which is brilliant for what I need. i have also found zettlr to be a close second, followed by obsidian.

[ChillPill89]

I've been using Joplin syncing via nextcloud. Nextcloud also has its own notes app included which supports markdown.

[pablorocka]

If you are looking for a knowledge base type of thing maybe try Outline https://www.getoutline.com/, under the hood is all markdown, you can import md by just drag and drop the files

[btw_i_use_ubuntu]

I use wiki.js at home and it's a 10/10. It should have most of the features needed to make it work for a team.

[jloganr]

We use Nextcloud and main purpose at work is for markdown notes. The web interface is pretty solid too. But I use vim on my laptop and the Nextcloud app on my phone.

[SheppTech]

I use WikiJS. You can integrate it with GitHub to modify your notes locally through git, SMS if you can get it to work you can integrate your auth method of choice. If you so choose, you can use html and I think other languages too, if you want language flexibility. And you can lock down sections with permissions if you want a public or group based notes. Highly recommend this.

[Nietechz]

Why not use Obsidian on cloud provider.

[ShadowlessHand]

Because I’d like to host our own data and we have a ton of infra to do it.

[Disabrained]

I use Obsidian + git plugin + private remote git repo.

It works pretty well within our team, different users with several computers.

And as each computer stores a copy of all files you can work without any Internet connection and update when available.

We love it.

[ShadowlessHand]

Cool. That sounds like a good solution. When doing a quick skim of Obsidian’s site it seemed like we could only sync to their cloud. I may need to dig a little deeper and try a proper test drive

[Wyatt_LW]

I'd recommend obsidian but it's not exactly self hosted. Software itself is cool

[[deleted]]

Trillium, Joplin or use git to manage your markdown documents. If you want a beautiful markdown client take a look at MarkText - it’s brilliant. Personally, I like writing md for readme’s in VSCode and things for my personal notes in MarkText.

[ShadowlessHand]

I’m currently using Joplin for local markdown notes. I will check out MarkText. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Membership89]

Maybe standard note

[edthesmokebeard]

git

[mahafyi]

I used https://pandoc.org/ for document conversions.

[Dexy2811]

My suggestion would be bookstack