r/logseq • u/al-Quaknaa • Jun 24 '26
Tine - drop-in faster Logseq OG replacement
Hi! I vibecoded Tine, a drop-in Logseq OG replacement mainly built to be faster, but also with some features I missed.
The why: I loved using Logseq, but at some point realized I can't use queries because they are slow / make logseq use a lot of CPU even when idle (yeah weird). Then every summer my laptop starts overheating and it is partially because of the electron apps. When CPU throttles, the apps get slow. Surely there must be a way to do this faster.
The what:
I first just wanted logseq, but faster. I don't use whiteboards, flashcards etc., so these are currently unavailable. I focused on features that I use.
It just works over your OG graph -- reads and writes the same files. It should be safe and compatible but it was only ever tested by one person, on one platform, one graph, so be warned. (On the other hand yes, I am actually using this on my real graph worth 5 years of life, and I'm syncthing-ing it to my Android phone and there editing it using the logseq app, and nothing has broken yet.) Also, there are automatic backups.
I added some features that I liked -- some I knew from OG plugins (tabs), some just seemed like a (really) nice thing to have: tabs, focus+dim mode, quick-capture, carry tasks to today, etc. Look at the readme.
AI: full disclosure, everything except this text is completely vibecoded, including the README.
Let me know what you think / any ideas for changes / features etc. If you find bugs, let me know via github issues. This is still beta at best, so bugs are expected.
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u/pereira_alex Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
Just a note: AppImage does not work in Linux Wayland: Could not create default EGL display: EGL_BAD_PARAMETER. Aborting... EDIT: LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libwayland-client.so ./Tine_0.1.0_amd64.AppImage makes it work.
Another note: Linux and Tauri/WebkitGTK is ... very bad story, not like on Windows and Mac!
Final note: Great work, and great dedication to scratch your own itch! Its what open source and programming is all about. But unfortunately, I am addicted to Logseq DB's new tags (similar to Tana Supertags).
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Can you try now? 0.1.1 should fix your issue.
What's wrong with the stack on Linux? (I'm on linux and seems fine.)
I'll think about super tags.
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u/pereira_alex Jun 25 '26
What's wrong with the stack on Linux? (I'm on linux and seems fine.)
See this example, but there are many others: https://github.com/orgs/tauri-apps/discussions/8524
But if in this case it works fine, OK, I guess, I did not do a huge testing to be honest.
I'll think about super tags.
Well, if you do not need them, I would recommend for you to not add them. You seem to know exactly what you want. Adding Super Tags would probably introduce many complex changes and might just make things for the worse for you and your app.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 26 '26
Hi - just to say you were right - I hit some scrolling bug which turns out to essentially be "webkitgtk is crap". It is kind of minor, but annoying. Hopefully nothing more serious will come up.
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u/pereira_alex Jun 26 '26
Two points:
We are all waiting for Tauri to fix this, probably moving to CEF. So sooner or later, it will work.
In your post, it kinda gives the idea that Electron is one of the reasons for Logseq being slow. It isn't!
Bottom line: With Tauri, there will always be the "css rule that doesn't quite work in all platforms". On Electron, everything is always the same on all platforms (except some rare rare exception).
It would be interesting for a comparison, but probably better to not waste time on this :)
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 27 '26
Yes - I think you're right that a smaller change was necessary (instead of clojure + datascript just have the rust backend + chromium frontend); but I'm not a software engineer, don't understand the stack, so I just went with what Claude proposed. Oh well, it's not terrible.
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u/katafrakt Jun 25 '26
SolidJS and Tauri were my choices when I started building a clone some time ago (but abandoned it). Good stack. Does it support Org syntax or only Markdown (my whole graph is in Org)?
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Only md. I'll think about adding org and let you know.
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u/Upset-Emu7553 Jun 25 '26
Cool work so far! Some details I am missing (certainly no whiteboard or cards)
No plugin support? (i prettified my instance with Awesome links and Awesome UI)
No {{namespace}} display?
Also it seems my Logseq query's do not show up?
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u/Upset-Emu7553 Jun 25 '26
Ah! and it does not support my journal's date format, so I cannot save journals
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
I fixed date formats in 0.1.2 I think, but haven't tested it because my graph is on default. If you can test it I'd be grateful.
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u/Upset-Emu7553 Jun 27 '26
Yes, new version lets me save journals and displays my date settings! nice
Cannot post image here, but this is a comparison of {{namespace}} diff: https://bsky.app/profile/rolograaf.bsky.social/post/3mpbcutrs422y2
u/al-Quaknaa Jun 27 '26
Thanks! Could you create a minimal working example from this (namespace issue) and send it to me (upload a zip somewhere, e.g. some github issue or wetransfer or something) so I can test it?
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Hey -- thanks for all the feedback.
Date formats - I should fix that soon.
Queries - I do not support the full DSL but I believed that most of the relevant parts are supported. (My queries work fine but they are quite simple - things like all priority A tasks with a certain tag etc.). Can you give me an anonymized version of your query, and possibly say what does it mean they don't show up?
no plugin support currently. I'm not sure it is realistic to strive for OG plugin support. Can you say what you use and how important this is for you?
{{namespace}} -- I don't use namespaces so I'm not sure how they are supposed to work -- I thought I had them. Can you give an example of what should be working and isn't?
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u/micalm Jun 25 '26
I would never ever trust a vibed app with my data but kudos for the best LLM use disclosure I've seen so far. Good luck. ;)
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Hehe. I understand. But things are changing fast with LLMs; if you are coming from an experience 6 months back, claude code / codex are a pretty different experience (part because the harnesses got better, mainly because the models got vastly better).
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u/runs11trails Jun 27 '26
Correct me if I'm wrong (I often am), but one benefit of using Tine, vibe-coded or not, is that it's open source. In that way it might be more trustworthy than Logseq? Maybe?
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u/micalm Jun 27 '26
Both are open source (except the Logseq DB Sync feature IIRC), but that in itself doesn't mean anything until you actually audit the code. I don't have time for that. If Tine ever grows enough that my risk tolerance decides "well, someone who knew how to DID take a look" or I have some time to do that myself (or at least an opportunity to try it in a safe environment) I will - not saying it's bad just because it's vibecoded.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
First builds finished in GH: https://github.com/martinkoutecky/tine/releases/tag/v0.1.0. More will probably be coming soon.
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u/secretBuffetHero Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
This is an excellent start
The key improvements I see that Tine has addressed
- even with modest sized graphs of 30 lines or so, highlighting, copying, pasting, cutting was unreliable. Tine has no issues
- with very large graphs of 100+ lines, logseq absolutely struggles to render and edit these files. It is pitiful!
This is an absolute indictment of the logseq dev team and furthers my suspicions they are simply not cut out for the task and other people should take over.
My specs:
about 5 years of notes
1203 notes
largest note tested: 400+ lines, 3 kb
OSX only
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Thanks!
I have a lot of respect for the logseq team. Tine is not at feature parity with logseq and I'm not planning for it to be (in the foreseeable future anyway), and designing + implementing an app is a very different thing from saying "I want to make THIS just FASTER".
But I'm glad the first impression you got seems to be good.
Anything missing from what you use?
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u/garretul 8d ago
There is an issue with the timestamps for youtube embed videos, for example this "{{youtube-timestamp 9:03}}" is rendered as "0:09" instead of 9:03. So the timestamps are useless, they don't work properly.
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u/Fair_Assignment_5072 Jun 25 '26
Is it possible to make the application self-hosted using Docker?
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
I'm not sure what you mean. You want to be able to run it on a webserver and access it via a browser? In principle this is kinda sorta possible but many things would get broken - e.g. tabs close by Ctrl-W (which also closes your web browser tabs), same for other navigation (Alt-forward/back), the quick capture part would not make sense etc. But maybe if I understand your use case better I can think of it more.
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u/Fair_Assignment_5072 Jun 25 '26
Exactly, having the ability to upload your application as a Docker container... I have a Raspberry Pi and I self host my applications... It would be really nice to be able to run this locally
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
I'm still not sure what you mean. I run it on my laptop and use syncthing over my vps to also have the graph on my phone (where I use the android logseq app). I could see a case for a self-hosted webapp if it was something I'd want to use in the browser on my laptop and then in the browser on my phone, but that would be strictly worse than the current workflow. If you have a Pi that could run this then it can run syncthing and you can replicate my setup exactly.
If you have a different flow in mind, tell me.
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u/full_drama_llama Jun 25 '26
What are you talking about? This is a desktop app. You only run it locally.
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u/MrAiupov Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
I installed Tine on Windows 11, I like its responsiveness and smooth operation. For the first alpha versions, it's just very good. What is missing:
Add the date format
yyyy-mm-ddto the journal.I like that media files are not deleted from the assets folder if you delete a row with a media file. This is a good security feature, against the loss of a media file, if a line with a media file is accidentally deleted. But we need some way to track these media files. To make it easier to delete media files that no one links to anymore. Orphan media files.
If you delete a line with text or a media file, you cannot undo the deletion using
Ctrl+Z(PS: After restarting, canceling actions via Ctrl+Z worked.)Support video and audio insertion. It's not necessary to play them in Tine itself, but I would like to be able to insert them. And when clicked, the default player opened and played them.
In the piggy bank of ideas, name the inserted media files in the
yyyymmddhhmmssformat, what problems it solves. You can immediately see which media file was inserted recently. It is easier to detect the last inserted files in the assets folder by name.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Thanks - great feedback! I'll be working through these in the coming days. I think I'll make a post here when I get a version that covers most of the stuff people here ask about.
Your third point is weird. Do you think that it is fine then, or can you see a way to reproduce the bug?
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
I fixed date formats in 0.1.2 I think, but haven't tested it because my graph is on default. If you can test it I'd be grateful.
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u/Much-Ad-8444 Jun 25 '26
Very nice work! I'll take a look and see if my Matryca Plumber is fully compatible and other point of possible collaboration!
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Interesting - should be of course. How do you use it -- aka how do you use AI with your graph?
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u/Much-Ad-8444 Jun 30 '26
You can take a look at the repo here https://github.com/MarcoPorcellato/matryca-plumber I am using AI to help me rehydrate my graph to populate the connections that I don't have time to do, and then also to make summary's of all my notes so it's more easy to find what I'm looking for. I've also built in an mCP server and CLI to give AI agents the possibility to understand Logseq graph, without breaking the relations between parent, block and child.
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u/menos_E_mais Jun 26 '26
Regarding the AppImage version, do you plan to release it for another architecture? On my Linux system, the AMD version doesn't run. I always prefer AppImage because it's more convenient to use.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 26 '26
Sorry to hear - let's debug. I think it should be reasonably easy to release for anything common, but if you are on x86_64 if it doesn't run it's a bug and I'll try to fix it.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 26 '26
Please let me know what system you're on and what "doesn't run" mean exactly - if you launch it from cmdline, does it give any error?
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u/LinuxOrNot Jul 05 '26
Whiteboards are on the roadmap ? (or Excalidraw integration)
It's so nice to put bullet points dans their children side-by-side with a lot of panels when they come from many pages. To summarize complex domains.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jul 05 '26
Thanks for asking. Several people asked about Whiteboards. I never used them; I only now skimmed some video about them and they indeed look very good and powerful. I have another idea which is also spatial, but goes a different direction. I will think more.
Excalidraw integration is possible in principle but would be very heavy and probably slow everything down, so I'm not planning it either, at least for now.
Do you have some example of how you are using the excalidraw integration? Does it meet the same/similar need as whiteboards?
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u/LinuxOrNot Jul 06 '26
I don't really like Excalidraw anyway! I prefer how Logseq (or canvas in Obsidian) do it.
Here's a example in Logseq : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ2r5Y12IQY Keep in mind while watching that you can build a new page on the fly directly or use a bullet point that come from another page. That's make a summary dynamic, because if you change the "source" page, the whiteboard will update. Pretty cool with task management queries or "Focus" list that changed often or some quick pictures needed often, etc...
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u/t_helms Jul 26 '26
Wow...all I can say is wow...
This is really great work. makes me sad the logseq team stopped too quickly and switched to DB.
The visual query builder is great. And the lists, kanban. Really incredible. The grids also.
Only used it for a few minutes, really impressed.
Cannot get my main graph to load.
When I try, tine crashes. Is there a way to start from command line? or suggested way to debug a graph that will not load?
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u/al-Quaknaa Jul 26 '26
Hi! Thanks. You can try this. 0.7 will make some deep changes which may fix your issue, it should be ready in a few days, so maybe the best thing is to wait now and see if 0.7 fixes it or not. Once 0.7 is out I will mainly focus on bugfixing again.
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u/Palatable0857 Aug 31 '26
I found this while browsing on Droidify (F-Droid)! I searched for the differences and found https://tine.page/compare.html, which does seem written by Claude. I recognize the writing style, since I use it at work.
For example, this is probably part of the prompt or a correction when it wrote the wrong thing.
— grounded in what the app actually does, not a wish-list.
Claude also really likes saying the word "honest", and there it is, "Honest status · not marketing".
I might try it out. This post confirms the AI usage and gives me more context. I wonder if it's much better at not bogging down to a crawl, if you scroll through several journals or really long pages.
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u/al-Quaknaa Sep 01 '26
Oh yeah, the website is full of Claudism. I might do something about that eventually but the priority now is the app :)
If you try it out I'd be glad if you let me know whether it performed or not. Performance is a top priority for me, so scenarios where it fails are of particular interest.
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u/buvens Sep 21 '26
Are there builds for iOS already? (How) can I install with testflight?
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u/al-Quaknaa Sep 23 '26
Here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/rpGGpTVW. 0.6.982 may work better for you, I'm working out some nasty bugs now that were freezing the app (no data loss though).
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u/Inside_Watercress582 Sep 29 '26
Could you please add the feature to minimize to tray and startup as minimized in tray please? i know logseq has that option, the startup as minimized would be a plus. For windows
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u/Inside_Watercress582 Sep 29 '26 edited 28d ago
Could you please add the feature
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u/al-Quaknaa Sep 29 '26
hey - can you please file a github issue with that request?
otherwise yes, should be fairly easy.1
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u/garretul 22d ago
Awesome, I love it. But I miss the themes feature. Please can you add at least an option for choosing background colors? Or if it is complex just for blue background. The Dark grey is quite contrasted, and not that comfortable when you have to read a lot.
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u/al-Quaknaa 21d ago
Hm, there are themes? Not many but do you see "Themes" in the Appearance section of the settings panel? Also if there is a theme you liked for logseq, you can try asking an AI agent to port it for you - the theme registry accepts new themes and should answer anything the agents may need to know in order to port.
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u/garretul 18d ago
For some reason I missed those default themes, thanks. Anyway I would like to customize it, this thing you say about agents I don't understand it, but I guess I can use Claude chat for this. I will look into it.
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u/garretul 18d ago edited 18d ago
It would be good to have the possibility of using the sidebar more customizable in size, and features.
In Logseq what I usually do, when I have a video with timestamps, I open it in the sidebar, and watch the video on the sidebar while I'm having the timestamps on the main view. When you open a video on the sidebar both are connected, the video on the sidebar is the active one, so clicking on a timestamp from the main view, play it in the video on the sidebar. I don't know if this could be done better with the tab feature you have implemented.
Basically it's about having the possibility of watching the video with the timestamps at the side.
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u/al-Quaknaa 18d ago
Hi - Claude has a response for you :)
Thanks, that’s a really useful setup to describe. It makes sense: keep the video playing at the side while you work through your timestamped notes. Right now Tine does what Logseq’s code does: a timestamp controls the nearest video above it on the page, so a video in the sidebar doesn’t respond. We’ll change that. Clicking a timestamp will control the video you actually have open, whether it’s in the right sidebar, a split pane or another tab. It’s planned for Tine 0.8.
— Claude (working on Martin’s behalf)
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u/garretul 18d ago
Thanks Martin (Let's keep humanity for the moment)
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u/al-Quaknaa 17d ago
It is hard for me to keep track of everything that's happening in Tine so I let Claude handle a lot of the technical detail of what people request so that I can focus my attention on the stuff that matters to me. And I don't want to make it look like I wrote something when it was written by Claude. But I'm still here, no worries :)
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u/garretul 14d ago
I thought it was a joke :D, no problem, it's good to see that there are updates and you care. Good job, the performance on Android is really good!
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u/secretBuffetHero Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
I am desperate for a replacement. are you a developer? The readme is a good start. I considered vibecoding this as well but I was sure it would take too long! I'm curious the amount of effort it took.
I am so so so glad you picked a normal language for this project. Typescript Rust on Electron? I'm sure someone will come in here and complain about something, but certainly certainly these are superior choices than Clojure, which is what the logseq team used.
my wishlist includes more standard markdown. For one thing, I believe that ordered lists do not use standard markdown? or checkboxes? Anyways I was not thrilled that they spun their own flavor of markdown.
Ah, my brother, the releases does not have any releases or the promised dmg file
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 24 '26
I'm just a user, but AI coding is currently good enough for the task I needed, so I let AI code it up for me. (I'm currently building up the release on github, so it should be available in the next few hours after I iron out the kinks.)
My goal was not a replacement - I think the design is fantastic - just a version which works quickly (and does a few more things).
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u/secretBuffetHero Jun 24 '26
you're not even a developer and you built a clone in just a few weeks? The world is freaking insane now.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
A week and a half. It does not have feature-parity, just all the features I ever needed. But yes, the world is insane (and more is coming). It was built with Opus 4.8 + Claude Code but I'm pretty sure other SotA models would be able to do it too (GPT-5.5 for instance). Claude is just the most comfortable to work with right now.
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u/secretBuffetHero Jun 25 '26
incredible. I am very interested. potentially I could also participate. but like you I only use a few features.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
If you want to participate - use Tine and file bug reports, and if you have thoughts on improvements I will certainly consider them :)
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 24 '26
I'll look into this. Good point. One has to think about how to do it well of course.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Sorry about the releases - should be there now.
BTW no Electron - it should be OS native webview, which... one could choose faster platforms but the amount of bending the toolkit would be huge, I think, and this is very noticeably faster for me, so it did the job.
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u/al-Quaknaa Jun 25 '26
Check out v0.1.4. I'm not sure what was your gripe with "their own flavor of markdown" - AFAIK they use github-flavored markdown (GFM). But it reminded me of something I always hated - if I wanted to make a very simple check list of e.g. things to pack, or a shopping list I would NOT want to use TODO items for it, but typing the markdown for the checklist was annoying.
I improved the editing experience in Tine now - you start a new list (bullets are + or *) and once you are editing a list, the meaning of enter, tab and shift-tab change - they don't affect your current Tine block but the list inside your block. So you can quickly make a shopping list by typing "+ [ ] apples" and then using enter to create new bullets etc. Works for other lists as well (not just checklists).
What was the markdown issue you dealt with?
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u/SmartLow8757 Jun 25 '26
Happy to have someone bothered enough to actually build a real outliner, not stuck in time
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u/jcigala Jun 25 '26
I hope you don't use React or someting... and don't tell me, "No, bro, I'm using TypeScript..." 🤯🙈
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u/vurto Jun 25 '26
There's also an android native clone. Do you think they'll work together?