
Laverna – A Markdown note-taking app focused on privacy - mcone
https://laverna.cc/
======
edanm
I'd really love a good Evernote alternative, but the one feature that tends
not to exist is full page bookmarking / web clipping. I want to be able to
clip a full page easily into the program, which will also save a copy of
whatever article I happen to be reading. I really wouldn't mind (and would
even love) to roll my own notes system with vim/etc. But without full page
clipping, it would be a problem.

Another good thing about Evernote is the easy ability to mix in images,
documents, and text.

The reasons I want to leave Evernote, btw, is:

1\. I worry about their future and would rather a more open solution.

2\. Their software, at least on Mac, really, really sucks. It's slow, and has
tons of incredibly ridiculos bugs that have been open for a long time. E.g.
when typing in a tag, if there's a dash, it will cause a problem with the
autocompletion. For someone who uses the tags a lot and has a whole system
based on them, having dashes cause a problem is a big deal, and the fact that
it hasn't been fixed in ~ a year makes me really question their priorities.

~~~
pizzapill
100 % agree with everything you said.

There isn't even a app on Linux and Evernotes web interface is the worst I've
ever used. I _overwrite_ important notes with bs on a regular basis because
the Ajax took two minutes to load and writes to something offscreen.

But the Webclipper works most of the time. Laverna does not even have a
Browser Plugin.

~~~
cannonedhamster
NixNote 2 has gotten better, but it's still a really heavy application and
I've not been able to use it fully because of that.

------
zachlatta
I've given up on using any sort of branded app for notetaking. At best it's
open source and the maintainers will lose interest in a few years.

When you write things down, you're investing in your future. It's silly to use
software that isn't making that same investment.

After trying Evernote, wikis, org-mode, and essentially everything else I
could find, I gave up and tried building my own system for notes. Plain
timestamped markdown files linked together. Edited with vim and a few bash
scripts, rendered with a custom deployment of Gollum. All in a git repo.

It's... wonderful. Surprisingly easy. Fast. If there's a feature I wish it
had, I can write a quick bash script to implement it. If Gollum stops being
maintained, I can use whatever the next best markdown renderer is. Markdown
isn't going away anytime soon.

It's liberating to be in control. I find myself more eager to write things
down. I'm surprised more people don't do the same.

Edit: here's what my system looks like
[https://imgur.com/a/nGplj](https://imgur.com/a/nGplj)

~~~
nlawalker
I tried to do this, but I missed a lot of the convenient features and
flexibility of OneNote too much and made my way back to it.

OneNote is proprietary, with a proprietary file format, but at least it's
"self hosted" (your notes live in concrete files you control, not in a
service), and it's got a lot of nice features that make it a joy to use.

~~~
cromantin
No local hosting on mac. On mac is either ms cloud or sharepoint,
unfortunately.

~~~
deagle50
This. Got me using Quiver with Syncthing pointed at the database (json). So
far I like it but the iOS app requires WebDAV if you can't use Dropbox. I
might set that up soon.

------
yborg
Apart from having sync capability (via Dropbox) this in almost no way shape or
form replicates the current capabilities of Evernote. A more accurate title
would be "Laverna: An open source note-taking application." This of course
will not generate many clicks, since there are dozens of things like this,
many of them better-looking and more mature.

~~~
echion
What's on your shortlist of "more mature [with same or more functionality]"
ones?

~~~
yborg
Simplenote would be the canonical example. BoostNote, which I think was an
earlier HN item. QOwnNotes, if you like ownCloud. Turtl, if you like eliding
the silent 'e'

Honorable Mention Notational Velocity (Mac-only)

I moved to Quiver from Evernote, also Mac-only. The solo dev moved to Berlin a
little over a year ago, and I would describe the app as minimally supported at
this point.

I've been at this a long time, and have run the gamut from Evernote to tagged
text files managed in Emacs with some custom macros, long before org-mode was
even a gleam in the eye of Carsten Dominik. So I've seen them all, and as
noted by many other folks, the rules boil down to one - must have a portable
base storage format (preferably Plain Old Text) and/or solid import and export
to some such portable storage format.

If it's commercial software, pricing will get stupid and/or bug-ridden
features that add bloat and that I don't want are added to justify said
pricing; the product/company is sold to someone who will do the above; the
product/company dies. If it's open source, more or less the same, with the
additional stage of becoming closed/proprietary/commercial, which then reduces
to the first case. I kind of assume at this point that I will be moving to a
different platform every 4 years or so.

------
trampi
Just FYI, more than one year has passed since the last release. The commit
frequency has declined significantly. I use it, but I am not sure if I would
recommend it in its current state. It does it's job and I like it, but the
future is uncertain.

~~~
talklittle
A bit misleading. The maintainers have been working on large experimental
features like a self-hosted "signaling server" which helps sync notes without
storing any note data on it, and without relying on third-party hosting like
Dropbox [1].

Also if you look at the dev branch [2], they have been making sweeping changes
to the codebase; most recently it appears they have been removing "old"
JavaScript libraries like Bower, presumably to move everything to an NPM
setup.

[1]:
[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/778](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/778)

[2]:
[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/commits/dev](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/commits/dev)

------
mikerathbun
I am constantly looking for a good notes app. I have been a paying Evernote
user for years and I really like it. The only problem is the formatting. I
take a lot of pride in formatting my notes and like it to look a certain way
depending on the content. Markdown is definitely the way I want to go which
Evernote has promised in the past but still hasn't delivered. That said note
of the buttons on Laverna seem to work on my Mac. Can't sign into DropBox and
can't create a notebook. Oh well.

~~~
xeo84
Have you tried Bear Notes? I switched from Evernote last year and made my life
easier.

~~~
mikerathbun
Looks really nice, but I need my notes app to run on Windows for work. That’s
one reason I use Evernote. It is so close for me, but falls short with note
creation.

------
omarish
The encryption seems very insecure. I just tried turning on encryption and it
revealed my password in the URL bar. And now each time I click on a new page,
it shows my password in the URL bar.

[https://laverna.cc/app/?password=<password>&cloudStorage=0](https://laverna.cc/app/?password=<password>&cloudStorage=0)

------
itaysk
There are so many note taking apps and yet I still can't find one I like. My
requirements are simple:

\- Markdown \- cross platform with sync \- tags

I have settled on SimpleNote for now, but I'm not completely happy. It's mac
app is low quality and doesn't have markdown, It's open source but they ignore
most of the issues. Bear Notes looks cool but wasn't cross platform.

I am still looking. If this thing had phone apps (I'm on iPhone) I'd give it a
go.

~~~
tomcam
Glad you like SimpleNote. How much time or money have you donated to it to get
your desired feature set up to snuff?

~~~
itaysk
I will happily give money to software I like. SimpleNote is currently a
compromise which I'm not completely happy with so I don't feel the need to
donate. If it answered all my needs, or at least didn't ignore it's users, I'd
buy it.

------
mgiannopoulos
This came up on Product Hunt today as well >> Turtl lets you take notes,
bookmark websites, and store documents for sensitive projects. From sharing
passwords with your coworkers to tracking research on an article you're
writing, Turtl keeps it all safe from everyone but you and those you share
with. < [https://turtlapp.com/download/](https://turtlapp.com/download/)

------
bharani_m
I run a minimal alternative to Evernote called EmailThis [1].

You can add the bookmarklet or browser extension. It will let you save
complete articles and webpages to your email inbox. If it cannot extract
useful text, EmailThis will save the page as a PDF and send it as an
attachment.

No need to install apps or login to other 3rd party services.

[1] [https://www.emailthis.me](https://www.emailthis.me)

~~~
vmateixeira
You lost me with your privacy policy

~~~
bharani_m
Can you tell me why it is bad?

I am actually very concerned with the privacy of the app's users. The only
communications I send to your email address are the initial onboarding emails
and the saved bookmarks. No drip messages, no promotional emails etc.

I guess I need to convey that better in the privacy policy. I'd appreciate any
links/resources that can help me draft a better privacy policy.

~~~
CodeWriter23
Obviously I can't speak for @vmateixeira, but this seems pretty bad to me.

> We may share generic aggregated demographic information not linked to any
> personal identification information regarding visitors and users with our
> business partners, trusted affiliates and advertisers for the purposes
> outlined above.

Especially considering the numerous examples of "anonymous" datasets being de-
anonymized.

~~~
ricardobeat
That would preclude using things like Google Analytics on the website, it's
not bad per se.

------
ernsheong
It doesn't do web clippings though.

Incidentally, I am building [https://pagedash.com](https://pagedash.com) to
clip web pages more accurately, exactly as you saw it (via a browser
extension)! Hope this helps someone.

~~~
someone13
Your sign up JS is broken - I just tried to enter my email and got a
"TypeError: undefined has no properties". Looks like a cool project, though -
I've wanted something like that for a while :-)

(oh, and I'm using FF 55 on Linux)

~~~
ernsheong
My bad. I'll take a look at this soon!

Update: Fixed the FF bug. Many thanks for taking the time to report! :)

------
scribu
Would be interesting to do a comparison with Standard Notes, which seems to
offer the same features.

~~~
Antrikshy
One distinction appears to be that Laverna syncs through an adapter you
maintain (like Dropbox).

~~~
0xCMP
Although with Standard Notes you're free to setup your own server too and can
backup to dropbox.

------
devinmcgloin
I've been using Notion ([https://www.notion.so](https://www.notion.so)) for a
while and have nothing but good things to say.

\- It's incredibly flexible. You can model Trello Task Boards in the same
interface as writing or making reference notes. \- They've got a great desktop
client and everything syncs offline. \- Latex Support \- Programmable
Templates \- Plus there seems to be pretty neat people behind it

I switched to it 8 months ago or so and haven't really looked back.

------
trextrex
Last I checked Laverna, they had really serious issues with losing data after
every update or so. I stopped using it after encountering one of these. Looks
like a lot of these issues are still open:

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/547](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/547)

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/683](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/683)

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/678](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/678)

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/675](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/675)

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/770](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/770)

[https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/747](https://github.com/Laverna/laverna/issues/747)

Edit: Formatting

------
yeasayer
One of the biggest use cases of Evernote for me – OCR notes with search. All
my important checks, slips and papers are going there. It's seems that Laverna
doesn't have this feature. So it's not an alternative for me.

~~~
lars_francke
This is what I'm missing from all alternatives. I do the same as you: Scan
everything I receive. I rarely use it to take notes.

OneNote is the only one that I think that has this as well.

------
kepano
Recently went through the process of evaluating every note taking tool I could
find. Settled on TiddlyWiki which is slightly unintuitive at first but very
well thought out once you get it customized to your needs. Fulfills most of
the needs I see people requesting on this thread, i.e. flat file storage,
syncable via Dropbox, markdown support, wiki structure.

------
tandav
I use plain .md files in a github "Notes" repo. I even don't render it, just
using Material Theme for sublime text.

Screenshot: [https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/5549677/29492466-0...](https://user-
images.githubusercontent.com/5549677/29492466-08a42706-8585-11e7-8dae-b95555280b0e.png)

------
macawfish
For notes, I use a text editor and Resilio Sync/Syncthing.

It's great!

~~~
gletard
Can you please describe this setup ?

~~~
macawfish
Yes, I have a folder called "pocket-cloud". Using syncthing, this folder is
synced between my phone, laptop and a server at my house. Whenever I add or
modify a file on any of those devices, it automatically syncs to the others.
Because there are three devices, it's very uncommon to miss updates. If my
laptop or phone are asleep, the server picks up the changes and passes them
on.

 _Did I mention? The devices don 't even need to be connected to the internet!
They only need to be on the same LAN!_

I have other synced folders, including PDFs, music and phone pictures/videos.

My girlfriend and I have a Resilio Sync folder that we use to share stuff with
each other. It works flawlessly and we don't even need the internet!

Resilio Sync and Syncthing are amazing tools. If you have any capacity to fix
bugs, I recommend using Syncthing (open source), so that you can potentially
fix bugs :) It's becoming much more stable, but could always use the support!

~~~
macawfish
Another thing: I'm using Syncthing to back up my 50+ GB bitwig projects
folder. It does automatic versioning in case something funny happens. This has
actually saved my neck before.

------
jasikpark
A ridiculously simple, but good notes app I've found is
[https://standardnotes.org](https://standardnotes.org)

------
barking
What are the main concerns people have about using evernote, data protection,
the company going out of business, the code being closed and proprietary? I
can understand all those but sometimes it also feels like everyone (me
included) expects every software to be free now.

I have a free evernote account and don't use it very much but I find it handy
for some things such as cooking recipes and walking maps. I think it would
also be great for Dave Allen's GTD technique if I could ever be disciplined
enough.

If evernote removed the free tier I think I would pay up, the pricing for the
personal plans is very reasonable. I'd probably make more use of it too.
Humans don't tend to value free stuff. For someone like me I think they'd have
had a better chance of turning me into a paying customer if their model was an
initial free period followed by having to pay up. But I will never pay up if I
can get away with paying nothing.

------
ziotom78
I used to use org-mode to take down notes when I attended seminars or meetings
(I'm an astrophysicist). However, a feature I missed was the ability to
quickly take photos to insert into my notes, in order to capture slides or
calculations/diagrams done on the blackboard.

Thus, last year I subscribed to Evernote (which provides both features), and I
must say that I am extremely satisfied. Moreover, Evernote's integration with
Firefox and Android allows me to quickly save web pages for later reading
(this might be possible with org-mode, but not as handy as with Evernote,
which just require one tap.)

I think that Laverna is interesting for users like me: it provides a web app
with a nice interface, it implements the first feature I need (easy photo
taking), and if really an Android app is on the way, integration with Android
services might allow to save web pages is Laverna using one tap like Evernote.

------
twodave
I tend to use Workflowy.com for anything hierarchical/simple/listy and then
Trello for anything bigger.

For instance, recently did some CTO interview screenings via phone. It was
really easy to set up a Trello board with a card per candidate, drop them in
the list matching their current position in the pipeline, attach a resume,
recruiter notes, due dates etc. The interview itself I threw as a bulleted
list into Workflowy and just crossed things off as they were covered. Took
notes in notepad and uploaded to the Trello board at the end. Invited stake
holders to view the board and sent out a daily email with progress.
Interviewed 8 candidates this way in a total of about 10 hours, including all
the time spent prepping and scoring and communicating with the hiring team.

------
dade_
I recently tried it again, Laverna is very buggy and I just received an email
from dropbox noting that the api they used is being deprecated. The app isn't
really native, just a chromium window running a local web app.

So if it needs to be mobile, I am using onenote, but have to use the web app
in Linux, and search is useless on the web app. So for desktop only, I use
Zim. Cross platform, lots of plugins, stores everything in a file system with
markdown. I haven't been able to get SVG to render in the notes though, which
would be awesome, then I could just edit my diagrams and pictures with
Inkscape. I can read the notes on mobile devices as they are just in markdown,
but a mobile app really is needed.

~~~
dotancohen
I used to be a heavy Zim user, but the inability to store arbitrary text, such
as code snippets, pushed me away.

Does Zim now support Markdown as a storage format? If so then perhaps the
issue of storing arbitrary text is resolved.

~~~
dade_
The source view plugin is what I really like about it: [http://zim-
wiki.org/manual/Plugins/Source_View.html](http://zim-
wiki.org/manual/Plugins/Source_View.html)

The txt files are in markdown. For whatever reason though, they decided @ was
a good choice for a tag and not #.

------
tardygrad
I'm going to give this a go.

Self hosted Dokuwiki has been my note taking tool of choice, usable on
multiple devices, easy to backup, easy to export notes but markdown sounds
good.

Is it possible to share notes or make notes public?

------
tomerbd
I found google keep to be the best for small notes without too much
categorization, and google spreadsheet to be the best for larger scoped note
taking due to the tabs.

~~~
GordonS
I hit the maximum character limit in Keep notes from time to time. Quite
annoying :/

~~~
tomerbd
yes also no history in google keep so i keep it for quick notes, it's really
for quick notes and not more than that, like i'm in a meeting so i do very
quick summaries there.

but permanent notes instead of any onenote, tomnote whatever I just use google
spreadsheet, I find it very useful, because I like have a single spreadsheet
for one big topic (like one spreadsheet for the company I work at) and then I
separate for subsheets for subtopics, I find this method to be perfect!

subsheets could be:

1\. useful urls 2\. useful commands 3\. administration 4\. high level overview

etc.

------
perilunar
I gave up on Evernote after experiencing syncing problems. Now I just use the
default MacOS and iOS notes.app. Seems kind of boring but it actually works
really well, and is nicely minimal. Also it’s free, pre-installed, no sync
problems, and has web access via iCloud when I need it.

But for the love of god, why did they make link colour orange instead of the
default blue? And why can’t it be changed via preferences? They had one job…

------
paulsutter
What I really really want is a tool that keeps notes in github, therefore an
open/standard/robust way to do offline, merge changes, resolve conflicts.

I've lost so much data from Evernote's atrocious conflict resolution that it's
my central concern. I don't see any mention of that here.

Use case: edit notes on a plane on laptop, edit notes on phone after landing,
sometime later use laptop again and zap.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Presumably if you just designed your note app to work with any generic Git,
you could interchangably use GitHub or something selfhosted.

------
LiweiZ
Notes are data. We need ways to input and store it fully under user's control.
And we need a much better way to get insight from our own notes.

------
anta40
I still use Evernote on my Android phone (Galaxy Note 4), mainly because of
handwriting support.

For simplistic notes, well Google Keep is enough.

Still looking for alternatives :)

------
chairmanwow
Using the online editor on Android with Firefox is essentially unusable. It
feels almost like Laverna is trying to do autocorrect at the same time as my
keyboard. Characters appear and disappear as I type which makes for a really
confusing UX.

------
djhworld
org-mode works well enough for me. It's a bit awkward at first and requires
you to remember a lot of key combinations and things, but it does the job.

It doesn't work so well across devices (especially mobile), so I tend to carry
around a small notebook, and then when I'm back at my computer I type anything
useful that I'd captured in my notebook into org mode.

Sometimes I just take a picture of my notes in my notebook and then use the
inlineimages feature to display the image inline, that works pretty well too
although there's no OCR.

It seems to work OK.

------
pacomerh
I'm very happy with Bear notes. Will give this a shot though.

------
jusujusu
Title is making me post this:
[http://elephant.mine.nu](http://elephant.mine.nu)

Cons: no mobile app, no OCR for docs, no web clipper

------
nishs
The macOS and web application don't look like the screenshot on the landing
page. Is there a theme that needs to be configured separately?

------
devalnor
I'm happy with Inkdrop [https://www.inkdrop.info/](https://www.inkdrop.info/)

------
snez
Like what's wrong with the macOS Notes app?

~~~
djhworld
For me the biggest annoyance is its insistence of "helping" you by auto
converting double quotes into smart quotes.

Handy for nicely formatted prose, not so useful for code snippets.

------
pookeh
I have been using Trello. To save a screenshot, I Ctrl+Cmd+Shift+4 the screen,
and paste directly into a card. It's fast.

------
znpy
Very cool!

Just wanted to say that the nodes app in nextcloud is very handy too!

Actually, if Nextcloud could embed this Laverna somehow... that would be
awesome.

------
mavci
I exported my contents and I found my contents in plain text. I think exported
contents should be encrypted too.

------
5_minutes
I love Evernote for its ocr capabilities, so I can go paperless. But it seems
this is not implemented here.

------
pacomerh
Bear notes is free if you don't sync your devices and it supports markdown
well. Very clean app.

------
ehudla
The two must haves for me are integration with org mode (as was mentioned in
thread) and with Zotero.

------
4010dell
I like it. Better than evernote. evernote was like trying to win a marathon
running backwards.

------
Skunkleton
We have had this application for a long time. It is called a text editor or a
word processor.

~~~
flamtap
Creating notes is not the problem people are trying to solve. They're trying
to make managing them easier.

------
Brajeshwar
“laverna.app” can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/gzmd36qe58h0wnw/Screenshot%202017-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gzmd36qe58h0wnw/Screenshot%202017-08-20%2010.50.41.png?dl=0)

~~~
mikerathbun
Right-click and select Open.

------
nodomain
Last release 1 year ago... seems dead, right?

------
rileytg
while the demo worked well, under the hood looks like a somewhat aging
codebase

------
loomer
>Laverna for android is coming soon

I'd probably start using it right now if it was already available for Android.

------
lewisl9029
It's really cool to see another app using remoteStorage for sync! I built Toc
Messenger a few years ago on top of remoteStorage for sync as well, and it was
a pleasure to work with
([https://github.com/lewisl9029/toc](https://github.com/lewisl9029/toc), the
actual app is no longer functioning since I took down the seed server quite a
while ago). Unfortunately, it seems like the technology hasn't gained much
traction since I last worked with it. The only 2 hosts listed on their wiki
that offer hosted remoteStorage are the same that I saw two years ago:
[https://wiki.remotestorage.io/Servers](https://wiki.remotestorage.io/Servers)

The other alternative sync method offered is Dropbox, and if it's also using
the remoteStorage library as the interface as I'm assuming, it would have to
depend on their Datastore API, which has been deprecated for more than a year
now AFAIK ([https://blogs.dropbox.com/developers/2015/04/deprecating-
the...](https://blogs.dropbox.com/developers/2015/04/deprecating-the-sync-and-
datastore-apis/)). Is that aspect of the app still functional? If anyone knows
any other user-provided data storage APIs like Dropbox Datastore or
remoteStorage that's more actively developed and supported, I'd love to hear
about them.

The concept of apps built on user-provided and user-controlled data-sources,
envisioned by projects like remoteStorage and Solid
([https://solid.mit.edu/](https://solid.mit.edu/)), has always been immensely
appealing to me. If users truly controlled their data, and only granted apps
access to the data they need to function (instead of depending on each
individual app to host user data in their own locked-off silos), then
switching to a different app would be a simple matter of granting another app
access to the same pieces of data. Lock-in would no longer be a thing!

Imagine that! We could have a healthy and highly competitive app ecosystem
where users choose apps by their own merit instead of by the size of their
moat built on nothing but network effects. Newcomers could unseat incumbents
by simply providing a better product that users want to switch to. Like a true
free-market meritocracy!

Sadly, this is a distant dream because both newcomers and incumbents today
realize the massive competitive advantage lock-in and network effects afford
them. Incumbents will never give up their moat and allow the possibility of
interop without a fight, and newcomers all end up racing to build up their own
walled-off data silos because they have ambitions to become an incumbent
enjoying a moat of their own one day. Even products that are built on top of
open protocols and allow non-trivial interop tend to eventually go down the
path of embrace, extend, extinguish, once they reach any significant scale.

I'm starting to think strong legislation around data-portability and ownership
may be the only way a future like this could stand to exist, but the
incumbents of today and their lobbying budgets will never let that happen.

------
krisives
Download no thanks

------
bunkydoo
I'm still using paper over here, nothing seems to do it for me on the
computer. Paper is great, and paper is king.

~~~
virmundi
I'm working on that too. Paper is king. Unfortunately my paper king has
multiple fiefdoms strewn throughout my house and office. Sadly his territory
span not just space, but time. There are unsearchable notes in books that
cover years. I need to move the kingdom into the digital age.

~~~
philipps
I also love paper (and notebooks and pens) but am in the same situation. The
new iPad Pro + Pencil look like a real alternative. I like the idea of having
all my notes stored digitally especially if I can get OCR to work reasonably
well.

