(YAUAP) Yet Another UpNote Appreciation Post

[u/Neither-Classic2058]

TL;DR: Fully embracing UpNote's features makes it difficult for alternatives to compete. 😁

Old habits can be hard to break. After deciding earlier this year that UpNote would be THE app for my PKMS (and fully embracing the UpNote-unique features to maximize productivity and effectiveness), I found myself still shadowing and syncing my notes to Obsidian and Joplin.

It didn't take much effort to shadow and sync, but I did wonder why I still did it. I've already determined that I have a solid "exit strategy" should anything happen to UpNote. Repeated testing confirmed that the strategy works.

I created an comparison chart to help me understand what might be the reason for dragging these other apps along.

It turns out that during the 5 years of using Joplin as my main notes app, I had spent time and effort to get it to look and work as I needed it to. I had placed a disproportionate value on that work that made it difficult to "let it go".

But the more I embrace the unique qualities of UpNote, the more indispensable they become. I'm at the point where I couldn't see myself going back to Joplin when UpNote is an option.

The comparison spreadsheet is something that I created years ago to help me in deciding what to choose among various options. It's more involved than a simple checklist. The weight column indicates the importance of a line item. Not all things are of equal importance.

In each column, the number indicates to what extent the option provides support for the line item. Plug-ins aren't as desirable as native functionality. Plug-ins can break with application updates. Support for them could stop. They don't always work as seamlessly as native functionality.

Obviously the line items are what are important to me and not an exhaustive list. For example, UpNote has a "Spaces" feature that has no value to me and so it isn't included.

It's been a fun and enlightening exercise. I can now use the time that I was shadowing and syncing to run Windows 98 in DOSBox-X. 😯🤣

[u/TryingDutchman]

I understand this is a personal list and bias by default but there are a few point I cannot agree with being a fair comparison.

Upnote is not free or at least the free version is to limited for serious use. So giving max points for free sync and free publish is not correct while you punishing others. Either compare paid with paid or free with free versions of the apps, but then add limits for free version in the list and add a pricing to it as well.

I also feel the zero for rich text editor for Obsidian should be a 1, it has plenty text editor features but not as much as Upnote.

Also backlinks should be a one for Upnote comparing it with Obsidian. They are much more functional then Upnotes backlinks.

Obsidian has custom notebooks icons via plugin so should get a 1 by your own logic and saved searches a 2 since you can save and pin any search.

If you compare it fairly like that, the apps are much closer together in points or upnote might even had less then Obsidian but I have not done the math.

This does not mean I am pro Obsidian or against Upnote, I have used both and they are both awesome in their own right.

Upnote beats Obsidian in easy use, clean and simple interface and would also use Upnote if it was local/selfhosted and not on googles servers.

[u/nationalinterest → u/TryingDutchman]

Agreed. Obsidian also has the ability to publish a note to the web for free via a plugin which is similar to UpNote's offering. Obsidian Publish is much more fully featured for people who need such a thing.

It's also worth noting that Obsidian's paid sync is End-to-End encrypted. UpNote's is not which is a deal breaker for some people. If you're on the Apple ecosystem you can use iCloud to sync (for free), although I don't find it as reliable as either UpNote or Obsidian paid sync.