Being very picky about the tools I use is something I sometimes regret, but it has helped me a lot in various situations too. Some time ago I shared what I use daily either at work or in my personal life. Earlier today I was checking my old posts, and I saw that post was in 2024?!. How the heck does time fly so quickly? So, instead of updating the post, I wanted to create a new one and maybe structure it a little differently this time. A Couple of things have changed over time.

Self-hosted Stuff

  • Coolify → For container management and hosting all other stuff below.
  • Nextcloud → File storage.
  • DokuWiki → Wiki for documentation. This is more of a playground right now. I am happy so far, but the authoring experience is awful. I got used to the live editing tools I believe.
  • Glance → A simple and beautiful dashboard.
  • Bar Assistant → For managing my cocktail database.
  • Marimo → Jupyter Notebooks alternative. I love this only for the reason that the notebooks are pure .py files.
  • Commafeed → RSS Feed Reader. I switched to a self hosted solution. Because I want to be able reach it anywhere I am in a browser.
  • Beszel → Dashboard for resource usage of my Docker containers.

Browsing

  • I still use Firefox, but I am not at all happy with where it’s headed.

Extensions

Social Media

Utility

  • Raycast → Still on Raycast.
  • BetterMouse → I am so happy that this exists and I don’t need to use that Logitech Options whatever thing.
  • Karabiner Elements → I use it more now and write my configuration using goku. I assign Caps Lock as HyperKey, flip my number row to the symbols of them, Caps Lock + HJKL for universal arrow keys, Right Command to F6 to use as LeaderKey trigger.
  • LeaderKey → Very simple application launcher with some intuitive defaults. I use Raycast most of the time, but there are some QoL features LeaderKey has that I like to have.
  • MonitorControl → Still use it.
  • Forklift → A better Finder.
  • Moom → For controlling windows. Lets me move windows around without needing to drag from the titlebar. Also lets me resize them without requiring to snap the corners. Resizing from corners is currently broken in Tahoe anyway.
  • Little Snitch Mini → For blocking connections going out from my Mac. Amazing utility.
  • PDF Expert → Using it since years. Readdle makes good apps. I use Calendars from them too.
  • Todoist → For tracking todo lists. Nice UI and features.
  • Ente Auth → Ente Auth for 2FA.

Media

  • Efecto → Amazing utility for in-browser image modifications. Especially the dithering stuff.
  • Ditherista → This one has quite a lot of algorithms in it for dithering images. I wish it would work with higher resolutions too though.
  • Affinity → I owned two apps from Serif in the past and it was all okay. Canva bought them recently and I don’t know what to do with it, but the complete suite is now free. BUT! You need of course an account to use it. I don’t know if I keep using it, but it is my current choice an alternative to Adobe.
  • Monodraw → As much as I love Monodraw, I use it way less than I want to.

Coding

  • Zed → Sometimes I get frustrated by the broken Neovim config. I love its simplicity and attention to detail. Vim mode is also very well implemented.
  • Neovim → Still use it whenever I am connected to a server.
  • Ghostty → I don’t jump my terminal emulators so often, but Ghostty seemed nice and I have been using it almost a year so far.
  • DBeaver → For checking my PostgreSQL databases.
  • Bruno → API Client. No fuss.

Note-taking

I put this to the last because my thoughts have been shifting recently. Although I am a big fan of file-based note-taking, I am also frustrated with the fact that you need to install an app on every machine you own. This is a problem in the work environment, for example. I can not install Obsidian on my company laptop, so my knowledge base, although it is very much related to my daily work, is not reachable at all. I tried to mirror everything I write in Obsidian to my DokuWiki instance, and it kind of works, but the authoring experience in DokuWiki is also not nice. Therefore, I am leaning toward web-based PKM solutions at the moment.

I self-hosted Affine for a while, but they limit the storage capacity even in self-hosted versions, so I stopped using it, and I don’t recommend it either. Capacities is also a nicely designed (in Europe ♥︎) piece of software, with the idea of everything being an object. It’s all fun and good, but it comes with a very annoying fact: I don’t own my data. Yes, they have an automatic export option on the pro plan; yes, they seem like nice people who want to do this stuff passionately; yes, they are not VC-backed, but still it annoys me to not be able to own my data when it comes especially to my notes.

So I don’t know where I will go from now, but I believe I did not open Obsidian for the past month at all, because I have been tinkering with the Capacities and DokuWiki combo. There must be some kind of a web-based, self-hosted alternative out there.

Nevertheless, I still list Obsidian below, due to the fact that it is file-based and I own my data. It’s not open source though…

  • Obsidian → I use it for my personal notes and knowledge base.
  • Zotero → Academic reference manager. I use it as a document manager which is a little out of its design purpose, but I freakin’ love it. Being able to link to annotations inside a document and generally manage documents, mostly PDFs, in a nicely designed environment is a blessing. I use the Zotero URIs all over my notes to link back to the source documents inside my note-taking apps. No matter where it is. It just works. I use the WebDAV Sync and sync my library to my Nextcloud instance.
  • Memos → Quick jotting down notes. I probably won’t use this much, but it is resource efficient, so I keep it running. I self-host it.