Trilium Notes
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 12 of 33 note-taking apps by recommenders
Recommended for flexible, low-maintenance note organization with local SQLite storage and optional sync. One recurring caveat: some dislike how notes are stored.
Recommended for flexible, low-maintenance note organization with local SQLite storage and optional sync. One recurring caveat: some dislike how notes are stored.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 10 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 10 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Flexible note structure and typed notes
“needing typed notes is what settled me on Trilium Notes after a foray into a bunch of alternatives”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here” “where one note can have many parents”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “I Use Obsidian” “Trilium saves me from a lot of cognitive burden by keeping the shape of the notes collection explicit and visible at all times”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here” Low maintenance, stays out of the way
“Pretty low maintenance overall - I can go months without even thinking about it.”
Comment from 7 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?” “that's why I moved from org-roam to trilium, so I could just stop hyper optimizing”
Comment from 4 Jan 2026 in “The Suck Is Why We're Here” Local SQLite storage, offline and syncable
“such that your notes (~web pages here) are stored in sqlite locally, offline-available, optionally syncing with a remote”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Capsule – Single-file web apps that save their data into SQLite” “It's open source, uses SQLite, and does automatic daily and weekly backups.”
Comment from 19 Apr 2026 in “Notion leaks email addresses of all editors of any public page” Usable as a website from other devices
“I love being able to use Trilium "as a website" to check out my notes on other's devices”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here” “Great server and client both.”
Comment from 25 Aug 2026 in “Reqwest vs. ureq vs. hyper: Which Rust HTTP Client in 2026?”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Dislikes how notes are stored
“the way they save/store the notes is actually one of the things I dislike about it even though I love the application itself”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “Show HN: Files.md – open-source alternative to Obsidian” Not an outliner
“far too busy, and it’s not an outliner”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here”
Other note-taking apps people recommend
The four most recommended other note-taking apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 33 note-taking apps, rankedWhat people said
16 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“we are spoiled for high quality note taking and knowledge management apps these days”
“Pretty low maintenance overall - I can go months without even thinking about it.”
“such that your notes (~web pages here) are stored in sqlite locally, offline-available, optionally syncing with a remote”
“one piece of software (Trilium Notes)”
“Great server and client both.”
“Trilium saves me from a lot of cognitive burden by keeping the shape of the notes collection explicit and visible at all times”
“far too busy, and it’s not an outliner”
“I needed the "edit anywhere" capability, too, had a keen interest in logseq as a result, and now can't recommend Trilium more.”
“I love being able to use Trilium "as a website" to check out my notes on other's devices”
“needing typed notes is what settled me on Trilium Notes after a foray into a bunch of alternatives”
“the way they save/store the notes is actually one of the things I dislike about it even though I love the application itself”
“It's open source, uses SQLite, and does automatic daily and weekly backups.”
“where one note can have many parents”
“that's why I moved from org-roam to trilium, so I could just stop hyper optimizing”
“it's the closest I've gotten to a solution that works the way my brain does”
“It's what I use every day for the things that you mentioned.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.