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As a journalist and avid fanatic of productiveness apps, I’ve used extra note-taking apps than I care to confess. Google Maintain, OneNote, SimpleNote, and a fairly huge assortment of open-source instruments have all been part of my note-taking arsenal at one level or one other. To make certain, a few of these had been glorious, some much less so, whereas others like Google Maintain and OneNote begrudgingly turned a key a part of my workflow.

Google Maintain, particularly, has been a continuing companion for its simplicity, fast note-taking, and huge web-based availability. Regardless of its comparatively restricted function set, the colourful sticky word format looks like an extension of the dozen or extra sticky notes plastered on my work desk. However as my note-taking wants have grown extra complicated, Maintain’s limitations simply can’t, ahem, sustain.

Maintain isn’t the one note-taking app that I usually use. I used to be an early adopter of Microsoft OneNote and clung to it after the downfall of Evernote. In concept, it packs each function I want, together with wealthy formatting and simple interlinking with different notes. Nonetheless, the app is heavy, clunky, and, typically sufficient, approach an excessive amount of for on a regular basis use. I’ve been searching for one thing that may deal with each severe work and fast note-taking with out drowning me in choices or locking my notes right into a proprietary format. Appears like a tall order.

That’s what I assumed till I found Define. It’s an open-source app that sits on the cross part of note-taking and private information administration, and it has fully changed each Google Maintain and OneNote for my use. Right here’s why.

One in all my largest gripes with OneNote is its extremely cluttered interface. In typical Microsoft style, it’s a productiveness software with a surprisingly obtuse person expertise that hampers productiveness as an alternative of aiding it. Google Maintain is the other of that. It’s too barebones. Define strikes a uncommon stability by providing a clear interface that lets your notes shine whereas nonetheless offering all of the instruments you want only a click on away. The app takes numerous inspiration from Notion however improves on it with a way more fluid presentation. There aren’t any pointless menu bars or floating toolbars, and there may be successfully no lag in any respect, even when embedding giant pages inside an current word. That lightning-quick efficiency was an enormous upsell after I initially began testing out Define, and it stays simply as quick as we speak. While you open a web page, it’s prepared so that you can sort and begin taking notes. While you write for a dwelling, that fast entry makes an enormous distinction.

The opposite function that bought me on Define was markdown help. For many who aren’t clued in on markdown, it’s successfully a option to tag wealthy formatting in your notes and have it present up precisely the identical throughout platforms and apps. I find it irresistible.

Whereas Google Maintain helps all the standard formatting choices like daring, italics, and bullet factors, it isn’t strong sufficient. OneNote, then again, goes off the deep finish. Strive exporting a doc and see the proprietary mess you get. In truth, when drafting an article in OneNote, I couldn’t even copy and paste the doc into our personal CMS as a result of sheer quantity of cruft it provides.

Define is constructed with markdown in thoughts. All the things you write is successfully plain textual content with tags added for formatting. These paperwork might be opened in some other markdown editor, making it a dream if doc portability is as vital to you as it’s to me. There’s no threat of shedding formatting or spending an entire lot of time cleansing up your copy. Furthermore, this markdown help has made it straightforward for me to import years’ price of notes from different markdown editors I’ve used.

One other frustration I’ve had with Google Maintain has been its lack of construction. Whereas labels are first step and useful to an extent, there is no such thing as a actual option to simply interlink notes. OneNote tries to unravel that with sections and notebooks, but it surely’s not significantly free-form the way in which fashionable instruments are.

Define takes a web page out of Wikipedia and allows you to create an interconnected information system. You possibly can create hyperlinks between pages, similar to a wiki. This helps keep away from replication of data, and in the event you’re engaged on an enormous undertaking, you possibly can seamlessly hyperlink notes, paperwork, and extra straight again to your main doc. It’s an enormous enchancment over nested pages. As somebody deep into the self-hosting and productiveness sport, I maintain notes on fascinating apps that I’m making an attempt out, and all of those are linked to a grasp doc that particulars my present stack.

Interlinking pages is only one benefit that Define gives. The app additionally works seamlessly with a variety of integrations that make managing and accessing exterior info a cinch. For instance, you possibly can toss in a Google Sheets hyperlink and Define will provide to embed the doc, full with a preview and the power to work together with the sheet. Equally, you possibly can embed shows, Figma artboards, Airtable paperwork, and extra. That deep integration extends past inbound connections.

For those who’re deploying Define for a small enterprise, you possibly can combine it with a work-focused messenger like Slack. This integration permits you to seek for and share Define paperwork straight from a chat window. It’s extremely helpful and one thing that’s merely not doable with Google Maintain or OneNote. For those who’re trying to push the app even additional, you possibly can join it with Zapier for limitless automation. You catch my drift.

Whereas all these options are glorious to have, there are just a few extra facets of Define that bought it to me. You see, self-hosting and information possession are extraordinarily vital to me. Whereas I’m not averse to utilizing cloud providers, I all the time attempt to preserve an offline, self-hosted copy of each file, doc, or {photograph}. Nonetheless, each Google Maintain and OneNote retailer your information on their respective firm servers. Handy as that’s, there are important tradeoffs. It’s a must to belief that your information will all the time be secure, the service will all the time be round — I’m taking a look at you, Google — and that privateness insurance policies gained’t change. Within the age of AI-everything, I simply don’t belief any firm sufficient.

Define is open-source and gives a simple self-hosted different. You possibly can run it by yourself server, maybe a Synology NAS, and even host it on a VPS to have straightforward on-line entry. Whereas that shifts the onus of upkeep, backups, and safety on you, it’s a compromise I’m comfy with. After all, the corporate does provide a cloud-hosted different for a value, and if the remainder of the function set is all that you simply’re searching for, Define remains to be a fantastic selection. However for me, information possession is the largest upsell.

On that word, Define has yet another function that appeals to me. Knowledge possession is nothing with out ease of knowledge transfers. Open-source apps can stop growth too. For those who’ve tried exporting paperwork from Google Maintain or OneNote, you’d understand how cumbersome that may be. Export choices are restricted, and the doc construction is cumbersome by design, making it onerous to switch these paperwork to a different app.

Define’s markdown-based strategy ensures that your notes are simply information in a folder. Again them up, copy them, sync them, or import them right into a brand-new app that you simply’re having fun with greater than Define. There’s no proprietary lock-in right here.

Why Define has develop into my go-to for severe note-taking

A lot as I like making an attempt out the most recent and best productiveness apps, my change from Google Maintain and OneNote to Define wasn’t nearly chasing the brand new shiny. I wanted to unravel a really actual downside I confronted in my workflow. And regardless of switching over to Define, I haven’t fully discarded Maintain simply but. As an alternative, I exploit it like a scratch pad or sticky word for ephemeral lists like grocery buying or when making a fast word.

However for notes that I make for analysis, long-form writing, journaling, or, for that matter, something that I want to stay round, Define is what I flip to. The app has the depth and have set of a industrial providing, all the benefits of self-hosting which might be vital to me, and an interface that simply will get out of the way in which to facilitate productiveness. All of this has made it my go-to app of selection for note-taking and private information administration. I simply don’t see myself going again to Google Maintain or OneNote for these duties once more.