I’ve used Joplin before which was okay-ish (but borked the e2e encryption during an update).

Now I would recommend Silverbullet if you are really keen on self hosting a notes app.

But the notes that work best for me is simply Obsidian + Syncthing-Fork (you could self host a syncthing server), thanks to its sheer ability to adapt to nearly any use case thanks to its plugin.

I use Joplin on top of Nextcloud.

I use Joplin, no complaints.

My solution is basically what @mojolobo mentions with Nextcloud behind it and I love the concept. Because Obsidian (via a WebDAV plugin on the phone) just syncs with the “Notes” folder in my Nextcloud root it really is just a bunch of .md (markdown) files. It gives me an added sense of security (on top of the self-hosting aspect) because I can see those files everywhere I have Nextcloud installed, I can edit them manually if I wanted to. On the PC you just point the Obsidian app to the folder, on phones you do it via a WebDAV plugin.

I’d vote for anytype or obsidian

Anytype has a learning curve, But it has built-in encryption and IPFS syncing provided by the company. The templating system is really slick and the relational aspect is pretty solid.

Obsidian + syncthing fork is a really solid contender. It’s much easier to work with out of the box but the features are a little more generic.

Neither of these are really self-hosted, so much as they are contained in their own ecosystem. You get some measure of higher availability that you have to really work for if you’re really self-hosting a product.

Trilium. You’ll be glass glad you tried it.

After trying a bunch, I’m using Obsidian + <your choice of sync plugin> now. Good thing with Obsidian is your notes are ultimately a bunch of plaintext files, so you can do whatever you want with them, and it comes with clients for most platforms.

Another option is Trilium, it is pretty powerful, and has a webapp so as long as you can access a browser, you’ll be able to access your notes. https://github.com/zadam/trilium

Obsidian is pretty neat. Can use it with Syncthing, although I guess you need Syncthing-Fork on Android now.

I use https://silverbullet.md and love it, it’s a bit more than a note taking app, but it’s definitely worth it.

Welcome to the rabbit hole of selfhosted note-taking apps. https://selfh.st/apps/?tag=Note-Taking

Unfortunately, this is going to be a bit of a journey. You’ll probably end up going through a few of these options until you find one that works for you and fits your workflow.

I setup nextcloud and just use that to backup my Obsidian notes. But I also use next cloud deck depending on the type of notes or list I’m making

Results from me asking this 1Y ago: https://lemm.ee/post/4593760

Went with Joplin and using it since.

I use Memos and love it.

https://www.usememos.com/

I connect to it from my desktop at home and from my phone via a WireGuard VPN and it’s everything I need. Worth a look, I think.

You can browse the collection on OpenAlternative here: https://openalternative.co/categories/notetaking

Quillpad is the closest I’ve found. It’s simple markdown files. It can sync with Nextcloud as well. I use it for any short note or lists. Long form stuff including journal, I use Obsidian (not open source)