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Add to SafariWhen comparing Joplin vs Dendron, the Slant community recommends Dendron for most people. In the question“What are the best knowledge base systems for personal use?” Dendron is ranked 18th while Joplin is ranked 19th. The most important reason people chose Dendron is:
Dendron does not pull notes off your system unless you want to explicitly. There are easy guides for syncing with Github or you can always use Dropbox, Onedrive etc. to sync your notes wherever you want.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Offline access
Pro Open source
Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app.
Pro Encryption
Pro Cross-platform
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Pro Supports file attachments
Pro Supports markdown
Pro Supports tags for notes
Pro Web Clipper
Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes.
Pro Optional CLI interface
Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers.
Pro Supports multiple languages
English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others.
Pro Active user forum with support from app creators
Support, troubleshooting, and new feature requests are easy to make at the user forum and you can contact the app creator directly.
Pro Dropbox support
Can sync using Dropbox.
Pro Nextcloud support
Pro Timed alarm reminder for to-do lists
Pro Local-first
Dendron does not pull notes off your system unless you want to explicitly. There are easy guides for syncing with Github or you can always use Dropbox, Onedrive etc. to sync your notes wherever you want.
Pro Open-source
Pro Built into VSCode
If you're already developing in VSCode, it's great to have your notes in a familiar environment. Reduces switching costs and you can use familiar keybindings.
Pro Flexible hierarchies
Dendron makes it easy to create and refactor hierarchies at will.
Pro Powerful built-in publishing
Dendron ships with a configuration for publishing your notes with Next.js. The resulting site is searchable and easy to navigate, and the VS Code extension can easily place links to notes in your clipboard for rapid sharing.
Pro It works the way your brain works
You can literally just start writing; Dendron doesn't force you into bullets, folders, projects, etc. You build your vault the way you want it, and Dendron takes care of the presentation.
Pro Helpful development team
Dendron's developers are always putting out videos and office hours to help others become familiar with Dendron.
Cons
Con Sync issues with Android
If update on Linux then sync on Android, sometimes the Android sync will duplicate or remove some journal notes. Seems to be a bug in the Android app. The Linux app alone without sync with Android seems to work well using Dropbox. But don't expect changes you make on Android to sync properly back to Linux.
Con Sync issue under Linux
The Linux client has a bug that requires the user to click the mouse frequently in order for sync to proceed. This bug has been open for a while.
Con Gargantuan memory footprint
1GB+ of memory for taking notes.
Con Old school interface
Con Bloated
This project is suffering from feature creep and uses a lot of memory for a note-taking app.
Con App Image launches very slowly
On Linux, you can only install via App Image, which take 5+ seconds to launch. I can launch LibreOffice in under two seconds.
Con Sync issues on Windows
No way to change account settings and sync easily corrupted.
Con Weak tag searching
Joplin can currently only search for a single tag at a time. None of the boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are available for use in searches. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of tags in Joplin.
Con Can't create tags from the mobile app
Con Little bit of a learning curve
If you're not familiar with VSCode, there may be a steep learning curve.
Con No mobile app
Dendron runs in VSCode so no ou-of-the-box mobile sync/experience.
