Hey folks! I’m completely new to Lemmy and still figuring out how everything works around here… But I’d love to share a project I’ve been building.
It’s called VOID (Versatile Open-source Infrastructure for Developers) - an open-source, local-first second-brain (note taking app but more powerful) application that combines the flexibility of Obsidian with the powerful organization of Notion.
Unlike many other tools, VOID is not just another note-taking app. It’s built with the idea of being a true second brain that you fully control. No vendor lock-in, no hidden cloud, no feature walls. Everything is open-source, customizable, and designed to adapt to your workflow instead of forcing you into someone else’s.
I’m currently building it with Rust, Tauri v2 and Vue.js. For certain plugins and configs, it also supports SurrealDB as a database.
check it out on my GitHub
You must log in or register to comment.
Url viiiiiideo is broken
You might want to highlight what differentiates it from Obsidian, except being open source. Just from looking at the page, I don’t know what it means to have organization capabilities from Notion?
What’s the difference compared to Trilium?
I saw you picked SurrealDB, what has been your experience with that so far?
Looking good!
Slightly off-topic, but with all the craps that’s going on with Github, ever consider having your projects on Codeberg instead?
A new competitor to Obsidian other than Trilium and Logseq would be awesome. I have to ask are you vibe coding? The length of the project and extensive use of emojis in the read me makes me question… I wish you the best. If you get a server container and an iPhone app I would seriously support it.
I tried to make README less boring using emoji) And I’m pretty confident in my Rust and Vue skills, so not using chatGPT(or any other AI tool) in my work). I wrote all of the VOID by my hands.
Awesome! Just asking based on posts I frequent
Also iPhone app would be released after successful VOID open beta
Is it a notes app? Second brain doesn’t mean anything to me, and I don’t understand what it does from your README. The name is also confusing. What does it mean by open source infrastructure?
Yep, it’s just powerful notetaking app
Second brain and powerful note taking app just smells like somebody trying to make joplin but with AI assistants, I almost skipped your post because of the way powerful stopped meaning abundant and complex.
Second brain is a much used term really. There are plenty of second brain apps, it’s not some made up term.
Unlike many other tools, VOID is not just another note-taking app.
no offense. but if I got a penny for everytime Ive heard this…
no offense. but if I got a penny for everytime Ive heard this…
yeah, I know) but I try my best to make this project as perfect and useful as possible
for everyone who walked this path of finding (or making) the perfect note app. there is no general perfect. everybody will find eventually a workflow which works - and evolves.
but I whish you all the best and that you may built an app which inspires many. :)
hi there, how it does compare with silverbullet?
https://github.com/silverbulletmd/silverbullet
like in the readme you say ‘no server’ then how do i use it on multiple devices?
i saw the editor video, cool, is way less snappy than silverbullet. in silverbullet they immediately render the markdown and that makes the cursor jump a bit.
I will create docker container for selfhosted synchronisation/collaboration server, and as option add p2p synchronization/collaboration. About silverbullet, didn’t try it, sorry
Nice :] sounds great. Any chance you will create a Flatpak?
Yep, 100% I will! But a little bit later, cause for now app is still WIP
the idea of being a true second brain
It’s good that it’s built with this idea, but what is the actual implementation of this idea? What features make it «a true second brain» that other «second brain» apps (obsidian and hundred other note taking apps) don’t have?
I did a bunch of research into second brain/zettelkasten apps (that is to say, apps that support note taking with note interlinking and rich text) earlier this year, and I couldn’t find a single app in the category that’s (1) FOSS, (2) stores notes as .md files natively (Logseq will import/export to .md, but it’s not native), and (3) is cross-platform in some way (for my purposes, I need it to be on Linux, Android, and Mac OS, or have a usable web app). Even the ones that get close all have some kind of gimmick to them, or are super ugly or slow or otherwise hard to use.
If Void can get those three nailed, and do it in a usable way, it will fill a very particular and exciting niche.
Doesn’t logseq store the notes as
.mdfiles? There is a directory named pages which contained them last time I checkedThis is a mandatory comment about Emacs’ org mode since
.orgfiles are extremely similar in syntax to.mdand can be interconverted extremely easily.This is great intel, thank you.
If you deem
.orgto be sufficient and want to use Emacs1 itself, there is an extension for the zettelkasten method of note taking that you might find useful.
1: Despite originating with the Emacs community,
.orgfiles are recognized by many (most?) IDEs, but I’m not sure if extensions are regularly ported to non-Lisp editors.
Considering that one of your requirements is already using
.mdfiles, which is a format pretty common… maybe a combination of different apps on different platforms would work? Specially considering that mobile UIs are likely gonna have different requirements than desktop UIs.One approach I was considering was using neutrinote on Android (which is a relatively simple but functional no-bullshit markdown editor supporting cross-linking between markdown files) and VSCode / VSCodium on the desktop (which also supports cross-linking, and I think has some note-taking related extensions), or maybe zed, or whichever editor you might already be using that can support markdown. Then use syncthing for the sync.
However, I have not yet really gotten into it, primarily because second brain/zettelkasten note-taking in general has never really fully clicked with me, most of the time when I take notes I just use them as a scratchpad / temporary storage… without much of a proper organization … just a note meant to be scrapped as soon as it’s acted on. Often I just use tabs in my notepad app, without really saving them to a file.
That is something I hadn’t considered, and well worth considering. Thank you.
FWIW I use Obsidian on desktop and Nextcloud Notes on mobile (along with Nextcloud sync for, uh, syncing) and it works great. All this and a TB of storage only costs me about 5 EUR/mo with Hetzner.
I know this won’t go over well here but I don’t really care that Obsidian isn’t FOSS, because it’s just a frontend for markdown files in folders. There’s no lock-in whatsoever, and it being FOSS or not makes no functional difference.
I broadly agree with you, but I would still prefer to have another option so that if/when Obsidian goes the Notion route, I have another option to jump to easily.
Me too, but I figure a clone will pop up very quickly if that happens, and I’ll already have an easily portable folder with markdown files.
My big concern is that, since there’s no substantial Obsidian competitor now, there must not be any money in it, which would slow down the arrival of a new clone if Obsidian ever platform-decay’d. Yes, the fact that it’s easily portable is a good bulwark, and that’s why I currently use Obsidian; but to make a comparison, it’s been twelve years since Google Reader died, and there isn’t yet a successor that I’ve found which offers both opml & last-read syncing and unlimited feeds, unless you can self-host.
I guess I’m saying, I’ve been on this ride for too long, I kinda want to get off of it.
The Google Reader comparison is excellent, that one still hurts… I think RSS usage has simply declined tremendously overall though, as opposed to PKM which is still going strong (I think/hope)
I think it’s probably still a subculture, like RSS was. I hope both of them have a resurgence, though.
The more the merrier - have you had a chance to try anytype out?
they have this local sync function that works even without any internet (sort of like a LAN?)
its been really handy for me as I often work in places without internet, but retain the ability to sync between laptop & phone.
(Also are notifications and kanbans on the roadmap?)
Yes, tried anytype, but I struggle with it’a lack of plugins and overall extensibility. As for kanban and notifications, yep, they are already on roadmap
brilliant, Im excited to try it - cheers for sharing it with the world for free.
Awesome! Thank you for all your effort on this. Looking forward to trying it out!
Cool, I’ve been considering something like that, I was set on using trillium but now I guess I’ll also give this one a shot !
Markdown support, plugin ecosystem, automation?
Full markdown support, all notes are just .md files like in obsidian. I’m currently working on plugins api and trying to implement layer that would allow obsidian plugin’s compatibility. Automation: I don’t really understand what you’re trying to say, can you specify please?
Automation as in automatically moving notes to a specified folder, calendar sync , to do list sync.
If you have Outlook , gmail ,Todoist and a few other app integrations and integrations with vim plugins it makes everyone’s lives easier.
Set and forget.
Looks super cool, I will have to check it out!
I know it’s definitely a massive ask, but has there been any consideration on collaboration tools in the future? Even if it’s not full multi-user editing, obsidian is really lacking in it’s ability to share with others, and those might be a huge add.
This is not super massive task, it’s already in my roadmap. I finish it in a short time after VOID’s beta
Incredible! Even more excited now!
oh, is it wysiwyg ? I settled on QOwnNotes this year and my only gripe is that the markdown editor and the actual note viewer are separated, which divides screen estate by 2 pretty much. Other than that I love that it’s a native program, very lightweight, and of course open source. I’ll be watching your progress. Cheers !
Yep, it’s wysiwyg. Huge thanks to obsidian. I took a lot of inspiration from their editor
ooooh ! Now I’m a bit more excited
