I'm thinking of going primitive, with discursion into zettelkasten

[Dormouse]

Lattics still going well. But I perceive a need to rejig my security system. I currently use encrypted folders and files; this works well enough but accessibility is high friction and notes etc are also vulnerable when they are opened.

My needs are relatively simple - I doubt I need much more than links, tags, tables, images and attachments. I'll cope with markdown if I have to but rich text is preferred because of colour. And I don't expect ever to have a huge volume of notes in it. My list of candidates quickly reduced to Standard Notes and Notesnook.

My preference is probably Standard Notes: it's been going longer and was taken over by Proton last year which ought to give it the edge in hardening expertise - and it's based in Switzerland. I do note though the lack of development since the take over and criticisms of the tables implementation. And the price is high. I don't want to justify that for what will be low volume use. I do also note that both Proton and Standard Notes typically have big Black Friday/Cyber Monday offers and that those discounts then roll on so long as the subscription is maintained. There's an expectation that there will be some sort of joint Proton/Standard subscription plan but so far nothing has been announced formally; Proton Ultimate subscribers have been given substantial discounts on request.

Notesnook stores notes in Germany but the developer is based in Pakistan. More whizz bang than SN, as if it wants to compete with mainstream notes apps but with a security USP. But cheaper, and considerably cheaper if you're in education or comparing with SN prices without discount. Notesnook also has discounts from time to time, but the discounts don't rollover.

I've dabbled mildly with both in the past but the free versions are missing features required for substantial use. Feels as if you have to be in properly to get a true feel about them. My current plan is to subscribe to Notesnook and then have a look at SN/Proton pricing around Black Friday, keeping my eyes open for anything that arises before then. Unfortunately export/import between SN and Notesnook appears not to be straightforward and easy.

[Dormouse]

Update on Proton/Standard Notes/Notesnook

Come Black Friday offers, I'll subscribe to Proton Ultimate.
A couple of months before that I might subscribe to Standard Notes - as a trial with the intention to cancel and then resubscribe (or not) on Black Friday. I need to be much clearer about how it will progress in the future under Proton's ownership; I'd like to see more development; given the current climate, I'd prefer to have the option of using European servers; I'll want to see that it's at least as good as Notesnook.

Notesnook has the virtues of the curate's egg. It's belief in privacy and security appears to be a core belief not an addon; it's open source. otoh the value of open source depends on the number of good eyes inspecting the code, and it's a relatively small app. It only has three coders in total. The last update included fixing a security weakness they were told about. There are some nice security related features like their monographs (encrypted shareable notes). The overall design is pretty standard. But usability isn't great and the UI seems relatively poor. Maybe I've just been spoilt by the apps I have been using recently.

It's currently working on keyboard shortcuts. It does have some, but many commands can only be accessed by mouse. Now I'm far more mouse oriented than most on this site, but the mouse suits some commands, depending on the workflow, and not others. The relatively new command palette helps, but involves a lot of scrolling and doesn't include all commands. And documentation is virtually non-existent; there is a (limited) online help document - but I only discovered the trigger for the command palette by reading some comments made when the feature was released. No wikilinks. It doesn't parse #tags written in the notes - you have to use the apps own tagging workflow. Search is unsophisticated.

I'd find it unusable - compared to many other apps - if I were trying to use it for all my notes. But I'm not, so I can live with it - but am very open to alternatives. And I will continue to use a security and privacy oriented accessible notes app. I have found it liberating to have one available. My previous system was secure, but the friction meant that I often didn't take notes or tucked them away in imperfect containers like password managers. So, whatever Notesnook's imperfections, it's better than that.

I've seen Anytype suggested as a secure notes program. I don't see it like that. It's interested in security, and data is encrypted and can be local; its AWS servers are in Switzerland. But although the data is encrypted, the indices are not. I suspect other features, eg collaboration, are as important to it as security. I also find it convoluted.

20250302 094751 UPDATE EDIT
Barely a couple of days later there's a few updates.

I downloaded latest version of NN (update button and auto mechanism reportedly not working on v3.0.28), and then switched to the beta channel - so now on 3.1.0 - beta.0.

There's a considerable change in the UI layout, and overall it's a considerable improvement. And there's now reportedly a keyboard shortcut for focus mode - though I can't remember what it was supposed to be (and it's not one I personally need).


Also a SN comment that though there's no feature updating currently, they are working with Proton on improving the backend

[Dormouse]

I have now written a number of notes in NN. Despite the UI improvement, it's still not close to the same class for usability as Lattics and Tangent. I semi-regularly moan to myself about some perceived deficiency (eg tab won't indent a paragraph - if I want similar functionality I have to use bullets; getting into a focus mode is cumbersome). Sometimes I want to just write the note in something else and then paste it in; Proton Docs isn't too bad for that (it would somewhat remove the point of NN if I used something less secure to write the original before pasting in). But it's okay.
I'm not entirely sure SN is okay. The free version is very limited and I have no desire to use it. Quite a few negative comments keep floating too. Including once when the sync server was down for quite a while (NN's monograph server has been down once for a few hours only). Communication with the user base doesn't seem great rn. But we'll see.
Proton Docs (pale imitation of google Docs) seems functional.

One similarity I have noticed between Lattics and NN is the primacy of the individual notes. Folders (aka documents or notebooks) exist, but it's as easy to put a note in multiple folders as it is to give them multiple tags. And the views are very similar. I have a suspicion that many modern apps are designed in this way.
One difference between them is that NN is very responsive to users, while Lattic's Discord seems abandoned and that's the only public communication channel I know of. But Lattic's development is coherent and seems to be following a clear plan and purpose, while NN's feature list seems random, apart from the security emphasis which is its purpose. I'm not convinced that user requests are the best way to enhance usability - every user wants something different.