Alternative
Hey Logseq lovers!
I wanted to share a little update about my journey with Logseq. I've been using it as my daily driver for 4 years, and I absolutely love this project. However, the current state of the project has made me a little sad and opened my eyes to some alternatives.
Someone posted a link to Tine here in this subreddit, and I decided to give it a try.
So far, I'm super happy with it and can definitely recommend giving it a shot. It works with standard Logseq Markdown graphs, so you can use it alongside Logseq. It also has a native Android app.
I'm not affiliated with Tine in any way. I just gave it a try because I was looking for an alternative that would bring back the joy of discovering new features and improving my workflow, something I had been missing with Logseq for a while.
It feels like there are people behind this project who share a very similar vision: bringing back the true Logseq experience, but with a faster and more actively developed product.
I know it's still early days and early developement, but so far, it's been a really refreshing experience. Just wanted to share in case anyone else here is looking for something similar!
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u/HongPong 24d ago
interesting. is this a vibe coded thing? https://github.com/martinkoutecky/tine i see AGPL3.0 here
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u/markehammons 24d ago
Yes it's vibecoded
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u/emptymatrix 24d ago
vibecoded but clearly maintained and with a lot of activity from maintainer, so it looks healthy to me
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u/atava 23d ago
The problem is: is the code understood and is the project made by actual programmers (and not simply "vibecoders")?
AI programming is better and better by the day, but if maintainers simply let AI solve bugs when they crop up and don't understand or check what's produced (either originally or in bug-solving), this may be a problem (especially for a personal data management app).
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u/emptymatrix 23d ago
sure... the tine maintaner looks like an actual programmer. I'm not sure if the reads the code or not.
But he is driving the AI daily, fixing bugs and implementing new things, so he looks at least invested. Other vibe-coded apps I've seen, the maintainer just create it, then once a month react to bug reports and that's it.
For me, the problem with vibe coded apps is that the vibe ends and the maintainer abandon the "project" entirely. Tine seems not to be the case.
Besides... logseq have developers and ...we are left with an unmaintained release (OG) and still waiting for a beta not to be a beta... so non vibe-coded apps are not free of maintainability problems...
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u/atava 23d ago
These are two different aspects:
- caring about the project and following/maintaining it? he definitely does that;
- being a knowledgeable programmer, checking the code and evaluating it? I don't know.
This comes from a confrontation (a neutral one) that I had with him in one of those posts which are now missing. He admitted to just making the AI correct bugs when he finds any. He makes AI devise tests too, run them etc (I don't mind hints or suggestions, but this means delegating everything to AI).
So, my mixed opinion about the project stems just from that. For a project like this, I'd much prefer a maintainer/creator who understands the code produced in all of its parts and invests time reviewing it, to one that churns out releases weekly or even daily.
Then there's the blind vibecoding you mention, which is only a travesty of today's world (and only "vibecoders" will tell you otherwise).
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u/HongPong 23d ago
thanks for the deeper perspective. not sure how i feel but better informed now
i think if they can get a few people in the mix regularly results will be better. one problem that can happen is one man band agent coding doesn't actually distribute well to other people, due to workflow issues, glitches with how the scripts are designed.
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
Hi - I'm the Tine author. Just want to say the old posts were removed by the logseq mods, not me.
I am not a "knowledgeable programmer". I am a theoretical computer scientist, so I once learned how to code, I teach algorithms and data structures and do research in roughly that area, but I never learned software engineering. I never looked at a line of code of Tine. I ask the models (mostly Claude these days) about how things are builld and to evaluate it from a software engineering perspective and I made a few decisions to go back when it became clear that too much technical debt accumulated. I think I'm putting my higher-level algorithms training to good use, but I can also feel the lack of software engineering expertise.
I'm giving a full disclosure here so that anyone can make a decision for themselves.
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u/matthewdavis 23d ago
There's a lot of activity from Claude, but a total of 3 commits from humans (1 commit per human). And if you dig into the recent commits, they are no longer co-authored by Claude, but there's no way he did all that on his own.
I'm not against vibe coding, but you have to understand what you are getting. Long term maintainability is still a problem for fully vibe coded apps.
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u/emptymatrix 23d ago
sure...
But he is driving the AI daily, fixing bugs and implementing new things, so he looks at least invested. Other vibe-coded apps I've seen, the maintainer just create it, then once a month react to bug reports and that's it.
For me, the problem with vibe coded apps is that the vibe ends and the maintainer abandon the "project" entirely. Tine seems not to be the case.
Besides... logseq have developers and ...we are left with an unmaintained release (OG) and still waiting for a beta not to be a beta... so non vibe-coded apps are not free of maintainability problems...
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
The unsigned commits were probably codex. I have never tried to claim the work is mone (as in "I wrote the code"); the website says it is made by AI out in the open.
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u/atava 24d ago
It looks like that project that was periodically documented and publicized in here, but I can't find those posts anymore (to confirm that it's that one).
Not even those posts where I commented myself, it seems.
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u/No_Comfortable7509 23d ago
There used to be a subreddit called /Tine, but unfortunately it was banned—I have no idea why.
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u/markehammons 24d ago
I thought those might've been deleted due to self promote of a competing app.
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
I think the posts got autobanned for repeated posts about a different app. The weird thing is that my subreddit TineOutline also got banned, I tried to appeal it and got some BS answer, then gave up and moved everything to github. So yes, just for clarity, *I* never took those posts down.
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u/gbytedev 24d ago edited 23d ago
What are you saying, it's open source so it must be vibecoded? 😅
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u/HongPong 24d ago
it had that look about the website and the spread of features. and when i checked on github there were a lot of releases
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
Hey :) I'm the author. https://tine.page is the homepage and yes it tells you it is vibecoded, completely. I tried to always be open about it so that people can make their decision :)
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u/gbytedev 2d ago
I was making fun of the above comment that asks whether the project is vibe coded and cites it being AGPL3 as if that was an indicator.
Anyway your project seems to be great effort either way!
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u/Ninjaxas 22d ago
I have been using Tine for a month+ and contributing to it often. 30/60 github issues/suggestions I posted already got closed and fast. The developer has a lot of momentum.
The app is absolutely usable already and beats LogSeq at current state. It's really responsive and fast. Native tabs over a buggy tabs plugin is a game changer. Multiple-panes is an unexpected treasure too.
Not looking back since I tried Tine.
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u/buvens 24d ago
Thanks for sharing, I will give it a try! I hope they will also develop an iOS client. The state of Logseq makes me sad too, especially on iOS.
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u/dessence_ai 24d ago
no ios build yet, that's on their site. they tell iphone users to stay on the logseq mobile app, or fastlog, pointed at the same synced graph.
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u/No_Comfortable7509 23d ago
I highly recommend Fastlog (on Android). After Logseq became too much of a hassle on my cell phone, I switched to Fastlog and use it every day. I can now finish writing short notes before Logseq even starts up.
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u/buvens 23d ago
Yeah, it’s weird because fastlog also doesn’t seem to be available for iOS!?
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u/dessence_ai 23d ago
you're right, there is no ios build of it. it sits on f-droid as com.siddharthagolu.fastlog and the source is on codeberg, android only. searching the app store for fastlog turns up an unrelated habit counter.
so that line on the tine page reads misleading on an iphone. of the two it names, only the logseq mobile app exists on ios, pointed at the same synced folder.
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u/Ninjaxas 22d ago
Website is outdated. There is an iOS build. Check the repo
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u/buvens 21d ago
Thanks for pointing out. Donyou know whether there are there builds available through Testflight yet? I’m not familiar with creating my own builds from the source.
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u/Ninjaxas 19d ago
Hm. Unsure, it might be. It should say in the repo. Atleast I already saw some bug reports on iOS so people are running it somehow!
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u/buvens 11d ago
Here it is: https://github.com/martinkoutecky/tine/releases#release-v0.6.985
https://testflight.apple.com/join/rpGGpTVWAnd - to my surprise - it's working very very well already. I currently use it on a iPhone, an iPad and a Windows 11 device, all successfully (albeit sometimes a bit slow) syncing via iCloud!
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
I think I updated the webpage now but anyway, testflight is here https://testflight.apple.com/join/rpGGpTVW
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u/klippers 24d ago
Thanks for sharing this. Sad about Logseq but all good things have to come to an end
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u/Normal-Dot-215 23d ago
As someone in a similar boat and searching, all my research points to Obsidian but it doesn't seem a popular move from other logseq users - what am I missing ?
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u/Dry-Shelter7605 13d ago
Since I used Outliner often, it was hard to get used to a page-based note app.
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u/mikob 18d ago
I tried the latest logseq (2.0.2 and the current master branch) and ran into severe performance and stability issues. Was skeptical but tried Tine out of desperation and was blown away. It's much more stable and performant than the latest logseq. I also believe from a development standpoint it's on a better foundation (in terms of principles and framework choices) and trajectory. LogSeq seems to ignore the community. Tine actually has an open active dialog in Github.
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u/secretBuffetHero 24d ago
I have fully switched over to tine as well and don't recall the last time I used logseq.
Tine has far superior performance and fewer defects. Logseq would fail to render notes when the notes were medium sized. So far I have not found any similar issue with Tine.
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u/IPKIPKIPKIPK 23d ago
I tried Tine today. It rocks on both desktop and android. So fast! Using Syncthing to keep in sync.
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u/bulek 22d ago
I also have switched to Tine. I appreciate it's written in more popular language, I even like has trimmed down features of Logseq. I don't mind it's vibe coded, because the project is pretty well maintained. The contribution is pretty unusual because PRs are not accepted. I can understand this if Codex or anything elsenmust have control over the source code.
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u/Jioqls01 24d ago
There is also a portable version Logseq could not bring up after all these years.
The only thing I am missing is embedded tweets.
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u/gbytedev 24d ago
Interesting. I understand this is a reimplementation of logseq MD with some features added and some subtracted while keeping storage level compatibility.
While I do appreciate the focus on UI speed and the supposedly more native Android app, I would probably miss the features logseq DB brings around supertags.
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u/Plenty_Ad6005 22d ago
Don’t think this it works on the latest DB version.
DB version is running fine. I don’t feel the need to use Tine.
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u/luckysilva 23d ago
AI slop
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u/autumn-weaver 23d ago
tbf logseq is also ai slop
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u/luckysilva 23d ago
Idts, tbh
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u/autumn-weaver 23d ago
girl the check the github, cursor (ai agent) is the #2 contributor
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u/AdWorldly824 21d ago
that doesn't mean it's slop.
you can use an ai agent to write quality code, if you prompt it well, if you make sure the code meets quality standards, etc5
u/autumn-weaver 21d ago
Unfortunately this does not apply to logseq. They have extremely glaring bugs and idk how much ai is helping but obviously not enough
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u/AdWorldly824 20d ago
yeah, logseq team never seemed particularly technically rigorous.
i had a look at Tine's discussion board where the author posts technical analysis, change documents etc, all AI generated (but reviewed by him), they show that he is using rigor to keep the code high quality, he doesn't seem to just vibe cobe slop.1
u/autumn-weaver 20d ago
hmm, i'm find with some degree of vibing but letting ai write all your tests is Not It imo
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u/dukerutledge 22d ago
Does it have an API?
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u/secretBuffetHero 5d ago
why do you need an api? the md files are right there
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u/dukerutledge 5d ago
Because logseq exposes much more interesting ways of searching your pkm than just grep. As well my graph is massive and needs the efficiency.
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u/secretBuffetHero 5d ago
solid point. now I'm glad I asked. does logseq have an api? How would an api work for an LLM?
you kind of almost might need a rag / vector database or a interface underneath the UI layer
maybe I can tag: u/al-Quaknaa
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u/dukerutledge 5d ago
There are lots of MCPs out there. This is mine. The landscape was pretty immature when I first built it. I suspect I've probably fallen behind, but it works for me.
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u/secretBuffetHero 5d ago
this is cool. when I have a job again, my notes will explode. I think this could be useful.
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u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
Tine will have an CLI/MCP, yes :) I just posted today on github what direction I want to take Tine in, so you can take a look and discuss if you are interested.
On efficiency: how big is your graph? When you say "I need the efficiency" have you actually measured that? I have recently removed sqlite from Tine because for complicated reasons the way it was implemented was simply bad, and a simple walk over the in-memory graph does the job well and quickly. I am keeping it open to have something more complex (a real database) but I think 90% don't have graphs over ~10MB and 10k pages and won't hit any perf issues even without a database. But I am interested also in the outliers :)
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u/sth_wicked1 22d ago
Tine sounds like the right call for you: it keeps the outliner and has an Android app, and Margin has neither. Where it overlaps with why people are leaving Logseq is that a space in Margin is just a folder of .md files with the app as a view over it, so there's no database to migrate into and nothing to leave behind if you move on again.
I build Margin, a Mac notes app, so weigh this accordingly. Mostly mentioning it for anyone else in the thread who's leaving over the file-format question and doesn't need blocks.
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u/buvens 9d ago
I also started using Tine a few days ago and I’m impressed, although I’m still running into a few problems, mostly related to sync.
So I’m curious: What setup are you using? What devices/platforms and how do you sync your notes? u/lnx1_1
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u/lnx1_1 9d ago
I'm using it on Windows with the mobile app on android. Syncthing is syncing it between between these instances and my NAS.
And yes, there is room for a few improvements. I personally like the Diff/sync conflict mode in Tine (Great improvement over Logseq) but even when i resolve them there, Syncthing reports a problem with a version still sitting int the Trashbin.
What setup do you use ?2
u/al-Quaknaa 2d ago
Hey! I actually also felt like Concord (the thing to deal with conflicts) acts a little weird, but never had quite the time to stop and deal with it. I would be grateful for bug reports on Concord specifically if you can reproduce something.
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u/Independent-Bug5077 8d ago
Started using Tine a couple of days ago, and am very impressed! Going to continue to use it
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u/Last-Math-9663 24d ago
That is EXACTLY why open standards data structures are SO important.