https://octarine.app/

Like Obsidian you can link notes and view them in a Node Graph. Notes are stored locally in markdown, so they are portable. Unlike Obsidian it has a fast WYSIWYG editor, is small (7Mb!), easy on RAM needs. And has keyboard shortcuts for almost everything.

There's a built in facility to send backups to Git. App is currently Mac-only. Dev has said that he was working on a Linux version but for now has "punted" on it, and a Windows version is unlikely.

The plan is for the app to be free, with a one-time Pro unlock for coming features like:

• ⁠More themes, and custom theming.

• ⁠Integrations with Linear / Github for Issues and Tickets

• ⁠Customising tags.

• ⁠Automations

• ⁠One click publish of notes

Just for grins, I checked it out. Seems developer is now supporting Linux and intends to support Windows and mobile eventually.
Has a nice Discord where developer was active when I joined and was very engaged when I asked about the project.

FYI, the app is not open source, neither is Obsidian. This is not a con (depending on your viewpoint), as developing an app is an investment and the dev can do as they see fit.
Good to see that the developer is upfront about this and seems to be developing a sensible monetisation strategy. Lately lots of shiny tools have disappeared from view or are in the process of shutting down. Maybe I am getting old but this has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.

That said, I was intrigued enough to download and try and although far from a thorough evaluation so far, I am quite impressed by what I saw. Excellent near-term roadmap, too. I'll definitely keep an eye on it and test some more, thanks for the tip!

Any news yet regarding the price of the Pro version?

Yes, I had a quick play, too, and although it’s not as sophisticated as e.g. Acreom (which also has a “forever free” tier), it’s got – as someone already pointed out – a tiny footprint! Unlike e.g. Tangent, Acreom, Capacities and other rather gorgeous but space-intensive apps such as AnyType.

I like the graph view, too – I tried it out on my Obsidian vault and was quite impressed by the results!

That’s another plus IMHO – you can designate any folder as a “vault”.

NotesHub is worth mentioning again here – another cross-platform app with a tiny, tiny footprint. But no graph view (although excellent kanban support). Single payment, no subscription. Which I hope is the route Octarine is going to take...

Prion wrote:

FYI, the app is not open source, neither is Obsidian. This is not a con
(depending on your viewpoint), as developing an app is an investment and
the dev can do as they see fit.
Good to see that the developer is upfront about this and seems to be
developing a sensible monetisation strategy. Lately lots of shiny tools
have disappeared from view or are in the process of shutting down. Maybe
I am getting old but this has dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.

That said, I was intrigued enough to download and try and although far
from a thorough evaluation so far, I am quite impressed by what I saw.
Excellent near-term roadmap, too. I'll definitely keep an eye on it and
test some more, thanks for the tip!

Any news yet regarding the price of the Pro version?

Since first writing about Octarine I’ve been following the app’s development with considerable interest and have finally gone Pro.

The developer, Rajat, has now decided to focus on Octarine full-time. He’s added a heap of features (multi-tabbing, multiple windows, AI assistance (including support for on-device AI models running on e.g. Ollama), a very good search function, etc. It also supports tagging and has a rather nice Daily Note function which allows you to transfer yesterday’s list of tasks to today’s. And he’s just introduced properties and folding headers. More details at: https://octarine.app

It’s already available for Mac, Windows and Linux, and now he’s working on an iOS version. Personally, I’m also hoping for an Android version, simply because I’ve moved away from iOS for my mobile needs.

Why does this app interest me? Above all because it’s a very fast equivalent to e.g. Obsidian in a small fraction of the footprint – Octarine’s disk footprint is just 27 MB. In this day and age, that’s extraordinary! And Rajat, who’s a software engineer, is very responsive and enthusiastic.

Rajat would love to join us on Outlinersoftware, but despite applying, never received the “confirm your identity” notice. Any ideas on that?

Just trying it this afternoon - experimenting with already existing Obsidian folders (vaults). Seems like a nice presentation, but so far it does not seem to be able to do the most simple task that Obsidian also failed at: arrow key scrolling up and down through a list of notes in the sidebar.

I came to these apps from The Archive and such lack of an obvious feature surprises me: am I missing something?

Thanks.

Oh wow, you’re right – I hadn’t actually noticed (I tend to use my mouse, but would certainly prefer keyboard arrows for large data sets)!

I shall let the amiable Rajat know!

I am thinking about going Pro: Can someone please confirm that the Kanban view is working? I am interested in knowing whether the individual items that you push around on a Kanban board can be _existing_ notes rather than items that only exist inside one other note.

Also, if Kanban items can originate from different parts inside your hierarchy of files, is there any hint about the context (visual or otherwise) the note originates from?

Thanks

Yo Prion,

Er, there isn’t a kanban view in Octarine (although I’m sure the developer would happily create one at some point). There’s a “graph” feature, like Obsidian’s Graph feature, that allows you to see how your notes are interlinked. I like the idea of a kanban (which I use quite a lot in Obsidian), but am even more interested in the developer’s plans for a more sophisticated task management function.

Cheers,
Bill

Prion wrote:

I am thinking about going Pro: Can someone please confirm that the
Kanban view is working? I am interested in knowing whether the
individual items that you push around on a Kanban board can be
_existing_ notes rather than items that only exist inside one other
note.

Also, if Kanban items can originate from different parts inside your
hierarchy of files, is there any hint about the context (visual or
otherwise) the note originates from?

Thanks