Things I use

January 24, 2026 @ 14:32

HeY! I thought I'd share some apps and tools and things I use that I think others can get some use out of too. I've seen a lot of "degoogle" guides and while they're nice, they all talk about the same things, don't provide alternatives to the same services, and only talk about Google rather than replacing more general mega-corporate products with smaller, locally run, or self-hosted alternatives.

Anytype (Notion)

First is Anytype. I've used Notion before and liked it. I especially like that every new line is treated as its own sort of "element" that you can grab and drag around independently. My main gripes with it being the classic intrusive AI and that it's really designed for online-only editing. I like being able to modify my important files and things regardless of how crappy my internet connection is. I also like open source stuff, so that's where Anytype comes in.

Anytype functions similar to Notion, but it's open source, local-first, and very private. They do sync your files to their server by default, but you can also host your own or keep files local only and sync between devices on the same network. I'll be honest, I'm not as well-versed in internet security as I could be, but when I launch an app and instead of asking for my email and password it assigns me a string of random words or characters I feel safe lol.

I'm using Anytype for my project organization, as it's very much made for larger project and knowledge management, but it also has a notes feature as well. Since they sync to their server they do offer a subscription for more storage, but it's not intrusive and again, you can sync to your own server or via p2p.

Tally (Google Forms)

Similar to Anytype, Tally also has a very notion-like structure, but for making surveys and forms. I like it because it's fairly easy to put stuff together with just a keyboard, and it's got a lot of extra specific features you can put into your forms if you'd like. Some I can think of off the top of my head, are payments through Stripe and a signature field. I used the signature field to get my playtesters to draw a doggy on signup that will be shown in the credits of Super Rocket Bytes lol.

It's also nice cause you can embed it on webpages with a solid colour or transparent background, so I have it on both the Sillyring page for submissions and my contact form and they fit in very nicely on the webpages.

File storage (Drive, Dropbox, Etc.)

I have a couple things I use for file storage so I thought I'd clump them together. First off I bought a NAS recently, so that's the main place I drop my files off. It's a Ugreen NAS which has a pretty neat web interface I honestly don't mind.

I also use Syncthing to sync files I want to be backed up. I seem to still have MegaSync on my computer for some reason though I'm not sure if it's actually syncing anything lol. Syncthing is very nice and easy to set up. I've got 2 4tb drives (one for redundancy) so 4tb total storage and it may honestly be more than I really need, but it's good to have.

I also have Papra as a secondary backup for certain files (as well as iCloud since my family pays for it), which is meant as a long-term app for dropping files in and forgetting. It's also open source and self-hostable if you'd like!

Forgejo (Github [Microsoft 😨])

I've got a little Forgejo git server running on a Raspberry Pi here under my desk, next to my NAS. I know a Raspi + Micro SD card aren't """good""" to be running 24/7 as file storage, which is why I mirror all my projects on Git.gay and Codeberg (open source only).

There's also instances hosted by both Disroot and the 32Bit Cafe, so there's plenty of options.

Memos (Notes)

I've written about Memos twice already before so I won't talk too much, but it's effectively a private Twitter feed for notes where you can create hashtags, upload files, and write notes in Markdown without needing to title them or structure them in a specific way.

It's also open source and self-hosted!

_{See my other posts here and here.}

Commafeed

I used to host FreshRSS which is very nice, but I discovered Commafeed a bit ago and it's very clean. I self-host it on my NAS, and it's just a really simplistic RSS feed reader that does what I need of it, without extra complications.

Linkding

I also used to host Slash for storing links and sharing lists of them with people, but I switched to Linkding a bit ago which is pretty solid. You can save and tag links, as well as sharing them with other users or publicly. You can then also share specific lists of links using certain hashtags.

A link manager in particular is very much not necessary for everyone, but for me my Firefox bookmarks bar was FILLED with links and things, so now I use it more as temporary memory and links to these services that I do use a lot.

Raindrop.io (Pinterest)

I used to use Pinterest to save images I liked, but I found that I'd scroll the feed for a really long time, and I also don't like big companies collecting a my information and showing me AI slop. I use Raindrop to make little collections of images and things, though technically it's meant for link aggregation.

I was having problems with it not working the other day and moved a bunch of stuff over to mymind, but it's a lot more restrictive with its free plan so I'm still on the lookout. It does seem to be working again today so I assume it was just some kind of outage, but I would like if they posted literally anything or gave any sort of error message for it.

That's all I can think of right now. Let me know if you try anything out, and feel free to give me other suggestions!

Thank, goobye! 🩷