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Lunatask or Timestripe - anyone using either?
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Posted by MadaboutDana
May 5, 2025 at 02:04 PM
Personally, I’ve now pivoted to and am very happy with Obsidian, over multiple platforms, synced using their own service (Obsidian Sync).
Thing is, I can configure Obsidian in any one of hundreds of different ways, with or without plugins. The combination I use at the moment, using a mixture of kanban boards and calendars, is perfect for my needs, while giving me the ability to link to any number of other documents stored within Obsidian (or elsewhere). In this sense, Obsidian is a CRIMPer’s dream!
There are other ways to sync Obsidian, but unless you’re totally committed to the AppleSphere (in which case you can use iCloud, which works perfectly well), the alternatives are relatively complex and not always reliable. I increasingly use Android devices, which is why Obsidian does the job so well (both on tablet and mobile).
Posted by Franz Grieser
May 5, 2025 at 07:24 PM
Well. Looks like I am still a crimper.
I am now test-driving Lunatask and will start testing Noteplan (the web edition and the iOS app) in a few days.
Unfortunately, Noteplan is Apple-only plus the web app. I contacted Eduard and asked him about the Windows app. He replied that he focuses on the Apple and the web apps and does not want to spread too thin with a Windows app.
Why then my interest in Noteplan (as I am using Windows machines)?
I found out that Noteplan stores notes as MD files in the file system and that it can be used in parallel to or as an alternative to Obsidian. I never fully adopted Obsidian though I have most of my notes for a new project (might become the big project of the rest of my life) as MD files in Obsidian. But I do not fully trust Obsidian: Twice, it refused to open my big vault because of problems with one or more plugins (I had to start it with a second vault and disable community plugins to be able to open my big vault).
Therefore I looked into Noteplan - and found the organizational parts pretty appealing. If the web app works smoothly with huge amounts of files and if the iOS apps do, too, I am tempted to switch over to Noteplan.
And: Yes, I know there are some PKM apps that also store notes inside MD files.
If Noteplan turns out to be a good and reliable alternative to Obsidian and a good alternative to my Outlook calendar and my XLSX todo list, I can stop looking around and not making a commitment to an app.
Posted by Amontillado
May 6, 2025 at 03:03 AM
I’ve looked again at Obsidian and I agree. It’s very nice and I think certain key plugins, like Dataview, have gotten a lot stronger.
Dataview was nothing but frustration when I first looked at it. Now, it doesn’t seem to have the quirks I got mired in before.
I’m kind of hooked on Devonthink, but it’s not much use in a Linux environment where I spend considerable time.
MadaboutDana wrote:
Personally, I’ve now pivoted to and am very happy with Obsidian,
>over multiple platforms, synced using their own service (Obsidian Sync).
>
>Thing is, I can configure Obsidian in any one of hundreds of different
>ways, with or without plugins. The combination I use at the moment,
>using a mixture of kanban boards and calendars, is perfect for my needs,
>while giving me the ability to link to any number of other documents
>stored within Obsidian (or elsewhere). In this sense, Obsidian is a
>CRIMPer’s dream!
>
>There are other ways to sync Obsidian, but unless you’re totally
>committed to the AppleSphere (in which case you can use iCloud, which
>works perfectly well), the alternatives are relatively complex and not
>always reliable. I increasingly use Android devices, which is why
>Obsidian does the job so well (both on tablet and mobile).
Posted by MadaboutDana
May 6, 2025 at 06:48 AM
Noteplan is a spectacular piece of software, and I used to love it. But then Eduard increased the price to a level which I simply couldn’t accept, hence my switch to Obsidian (Sync costs less than half what even the Personal version of Noteplan costs; although that could of course change!). Also, Obsidian is cross-platform and much more configurable – the setup I currently use is not unlike my previous Noteplan setup.
But Eduard has done a wonderful job with Noteplan, which is steadily evolving into a very, very powerful tool, with enthusiastic support from a band of very committed users. Eduard is also great at taking and incorporating feedback. If I were limiting myself to Apple platforms, I would probably have returned to Noteplan by now…
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by satis
May 7, 2025 at 01:31 AM
MadaboutDana wrote:
> hence my switch to Obsidian (Sync costs less than
> half what even the Personal version of Noteplan costs
This is one of those cases where getting a SetApp subscription (which includes NotePlan) is well worth the $10/month (or $12.50 for Mac+iOS). That service does a wonderful job of curating an insane number of best-of-breeed Apple-oriented apps as part of the one subscription price.
If I hadn’t already purchased a substantial minority of the apps they offer I’d have been a subscriber for years.
>But Eduard has done a wonderful job with Noteplan, which is steadily
>evolving into a very, very powerful tool, with enthusiastic support from
>a band of very committed users. Eduard is also great at taking and
>incorporating feedback. If I were limiting myself to Apple platforms, I
>would probably have returned to Noteplan by now…
I think a number of notes/writing apps, especially those charging a subscription, are leaving money on the table by not going after part of the journaling-app market to give added value to their products. This is especially accomplishable since Apple is opening up data pipes (images, location data, weather data) to devs that are currently custom-coded in high-end journaling apps.
There’s no single Holy Grail app that can well serve planning, tasks, goals, PKM and notes, but considering that Noteplan is built on a calendar interface and on daily notes it’s practically a no-brainer to deliver a personal journal section that can be siloed off/encrypted for personal use that increases the value of the app to individual users.
Day One at $35/year is the best journal app I’ve ever used, and I manage a handful of different journals inside it. I think the market is ripe for writing/notes apps to add this functionality—not just from NotePlan but also apps like IA Writer, Drafts, and Ulysses. Most of those apps can handle large files (I have 3,000 one-page daily Food journal entries alone in Day One, but inside Ulysses I have dozens of individual ‘sheets’ that are 20,000-50,000 words in length) so I don’t see why this area is not explored by those developers.
Apple has built a really nice and free one-journal iOS Journal app but has purposefully held off, for now, from offering a Mac or iPad version. Once they do a lot of current journaling apps will lose a lot of customers. It has personalized suggestions (based on recent location activity, photos, workouts, and more), reflection prompts, calendar view and a lot more. But Apple likes to keep things simple, and they don’t seem interested in either rushing cross-platform versions (which might reduce their app sales commissions) and they especially have shown no interest in their app offering more than a single journal. I’ve played with Apple’s Journal and it’s really slick and powerful but since I need to manage multiple journals I’ll have to stick to Day One… or a competitor if one shows up offering more for the money.