I had a task to check out [Roam notes]. I finally got around to completing the job, and I'm glad I did. While researching, I ran into [Dendron,], similar to Roam.

[Roam] costs money, I don't need another bill, and I'm dumping [Evernote]. Roam is double the cost of Evernote, so that's a non-starter.

_Dendron is free, and it fills my requirements for note-taking._

1. Free
2. Text-based, to avoid vendor lock-in
3. Hierarchical
4. Note Linking
5. Mobile Editing
6. Storage in Git

## Dendron

Dendron is a [Personal Knowledge Management (PKM)] tool that can scale to over 20K notes. It's [a VScode extension] that lets me manage my notes while filling in all requirements.

It supports the following notable features.

* [Markdown] notes to keep things simple.
* Front Matter to annotate your notes with a title and description.
* [Schemas] allow you to enforce structure in your notes.
* [Workspace] and [vaults] to organize your notes.
* [Hierarchies] to further organize your notes.
* [Graph View] to visualize your notes and quickly find them.

It has [many other features], and notably, it integrates with tools like [Anki] to memorize facts.

## GitJournal

I needed a way to edit and create notes on the run. I also wanted to save photos to my notes, and lo n' behold, [GitJournal] meets both requirements.

{{< youtube "DRjkG8Nsc9I" >}}

## Conclusion

I'll update this post as I learn more. Dendron, paired with GitJournal, is a suitable solution with many benefits. The markdown-based note-taking world is full of colorful tools. Now that my notes are text-based [new opportunities] are on the horizon.

[roam notes]: https://roamresearch.com/
[dendron,]: https://dendron.so/
[roam]: https://roamresearch.com/
[evernote]: https://evernote.com/
[personal knowledge management (pkm)]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_knowledge_management
[a vscode extension]: https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron#user-content-dendron:~:text=%2C%20hierarchical%20note%2Dtaking%20application%20built%20on%20top%20of%20VSCode%20and%20friends.
[markdown]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
[schemas]: https://wiki.dendron.so/#schema
[workspace]: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/c4cf5519-f7c2-4a23-b93b-1c9a02880f6b/
[vaults]: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/6682fca0-65ed-402c-8634-94cd51463cc4/
[hierarchies]: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/f3a41725-c5e5-4851-a6ed-5f541054d409/
[graph view]: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/587e6d62-3c5b-49b0-aedc-02f62f0448e6/
[many other features]: https://wiki.dendron.so/notes/401c5889-20ae-4b3a-8468-269def4b4865/
[anki]: https://ankiweb.net/about
[gitjournal]: https://gitjournal.io/
[new opportunities]: https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-benefits-to-using-Markdown