Why people self-host Trilium Notes
Trilium Notes is strongest for personal knowledge bases with deep hierarchy, rich notes, scripting, and long-running local-first use. It suits researchers who want structure and ownership more than team collaboration.
The tradeoff is that the interface and model are idiosyncratic. Export regularly and test restore of the database before writing irreplaceable notes.
What Trilium Notes does well
- A deep note tree where one note can appear in several places through cloning.
- Rich text, Markdown import, code notes, canvas drawings, diagrams, and relation maps.
- Attributes and scripting, so notes can be queried, templated, and automated.
- Per-note encryption, a web clipper, and sync between the desktop app and a self-hosted server.
Who Trilium Notes is for
Trilium is a personal knowledge base for people who think in hierarchies and want to keep building the same notes collection for years: researchers, engineers, and dedicated note-takers. It is a single-user tool. If you need a shared team wiki, look at Outline. If you want plain Markdown files on disk, look at Joplin or Obsidian with your own sync.
Deployment notes
Trilium Notes is listed with support signals for linux, docker, windows, macos. Check the upstream documentation before exposing it to the internet, review authentication defaults, and keep backups outside the primary host.
Run the server from the Docker image with one data volume. Everything is stored in a single SQLite database. Use the web interface directly, or install the desktop app and sync it to your server for offline work. Phones use the mobile web interface. Active development is now led by the TriliumNext community, which took over from the original author, so check that the image and releases you install come from the current TriliumNext repository. Trilium makes automatic daily, weekly, and monthly backups of its database, which you should copy somewhere off the server.
Common questions about Trilium Notes
What is the difference between Trilium and TriliumNext?
TriliumNext started as a community fork and now maintains the project, after the original author moved it to maintenance. New installs should use the releases published by the TriliumNext organization on GitHub.
Does Trilium have a mobile app?
There is no full native app. The server offers a mobile-friendly web interface that covers reading, quick capture, and basic editing.
Other self-hosted notes and knowledge apps
- AppFlowy: Open-source workspace for documents, databases, and team knowledge.
- Joplin Server: Sync server for Joplin notes, notebooks, and attachments.
- Outline: Team knowledge base with structured docs and permissions.
Compare them side by side in the notes and knowledge category.