The hierarchical note taking tool that grows as you do. Dendron is an open-source, local-first, markdown-based, note-taking tool built on top of VSCode. It lets you easily create, find, and manage knowledge bases of any size.
My favourite feature from Dendron is its flexible combination of a hierarchical structure with Schemas and a rizhomatic network that connects any note with any other note.
As a part-time/hobby developer, and person taking many notes for both my work and personal life, Dendron ticks all the right boxes for me:
- It is based on Visual Studio Code, a powerful and extremely customizable platform for editing all kinds of text-based files, with a huge ecosystem of plugins that play nicely together with Dendron and enhance the workflow.
- It uses Markdown, which has all the (for me) necessary formatting options, without forcing me to use a bloated, slow and proprietary WYSIWYG editor - and I can easily process the files with third-party tools or migrate my notes to another tool, if Dendron no longer meets my needs. Basically, I own my notes, not some company. This is also an incredible plus for privacy-minded people.
- It uses git (or other source code management system) for version history, which is a really clever choice (why reinvent the wheel, if these tools do it so much better).
- It has a friendly and professional community, including developers that listen to feedback and continously improve the product.
- It allows me to build a "second brain" by linking back and forth between notes, while at the same time allowing me to use as little or as much structure in my hierarchy as I want.
Who wouldn't I recommend Dendron to at this moment?
- Non-techy people that want a one-click installer and a UI instead of keyboard shortcuts. (Learn to use keyboard shortcuts, seriously, you can thank me later.)
- If you really don't want to use git, or another type of source control, which provides the version history for your notes.
- If you work mostly on mobile devices (iOS/Android). There are solutions/workaround, but to me they feel sub-par to alternative note-taking tools at the moment.
