Hi! I’m a software developer working on a suite of collaborative self-hostable apps to replace proprietary services I couldn’t find a good replacement for.
I am writing this post to seek opinions and ideas now that I am still in the early prototyping phase, before it’s too late to change track.
My idea is to develop a collection of simple single-purpose apps that do one and only one thing. The first app will be called Simple Notes (mirror), a replacement for Google Keep. Every operation is encrypted locally on the client, and the server never sees plaintext data. I am investigating federations models to let users connect to other instances and work collaboratively, much like Lemmy.
So, my goals in order of priority are:
- No compromises on privacy and security
- Completely FOSS
- Real-time collaboration between users
- Asynchronous collaboration (work offline, sync when back online)
- One account to operate on all apps in this suite
- Web UI / desktop UI / mobile UI
- Minimal interface which my grandma can use, no feature-bloat
- No anti-features such as advertisements, tracking, etc…
- Self-hosting
- Federation
After Simple Notes, I plan to keep developing other simple apps, some ideas on my list:
- Simple Notes - Replacement for Google Keep
- Simple Split - Replacement for SplitWise
- Simple Chat - Replacement for WhatsApp/Slack/Meet/Teams
- Simple Docs - Replacement for Google Docs
- Simple Draw - Collaborative drawing app
- Simple Calendar - Replacement for Google Calendar
Initially I started writing my own protocol (mirror), operating quite differently from Lemmy’s, but then I realized that someone else already has developed a protocol for this purpose: Matrix. It is (optionally) E2EE, it’s FOSS, and it’s federated. So yeah, it sounds like the perfect choice to me. Also, if I pick Matrix, Simple Chat will just be a reskin of Element, so development cost is almost zero.
So, a questions for the developers on the Lemmy Selfhosted community: do you think piggybacking the Matrix protocol would be a good choice? Do you know any alternative that might be more suited for this purpose?
And a question for all Lemmy Selfhosted users: is there a simple app that you would like me to add to the list?
Bonus question: do you know of any Lemmy community where I could repost?
Thank you very much for the time you spent reading my post!
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Link to source code on my server and GitHub mirror.
Oh yeah, I used Joplin in the past. Although the goals are quite different from my idea. Joplin is a great recommendation as an alternative to Google Keep, but it’s not real-time collaborative (or federated, for what it matters).
Ah, I don’t remember this option. Maybe it wasn’t available when I tried it last time a few years ago. I guess that means Joplin is still being actively developed.
Oh! I just noticed that they have quite a few things besides Docs. I mean… I probably should. My goal is for something much smaller, I just want a replacement for Google Keep, and some day in the near future, SplitWise. Joplin sounds like a better candidate than Numerique.
Thanks for pushing to collaborate, I realize that would actually make more sense than starting a new project from scratch. Not without guilt, I have to admit that I code for fun, and I have more fun working on something that works exactly as I envision it rather than just joining another project. Someday I might learn how to make some real contributions to existing software, but I don’t think this idea of making a simple replacement for Google Keep will be my trampoline to working this way. Still, thank you for trying to push me to do it!