Are you staying with Dynalist?

[digego2762]

I was using Dynalist for a while, and was a big fan, but the updates have died off. The team seems understandably distracted by obsidian’s success, which makes sense. I’m exploring switching to logseq or remnote. Not as polished as dynalist, but seem much more active and powerful, so I’m going to try to switch.

Has anyone tried exporting their notes into one of these other tools? I couldn’t find an importer for logseq. The remnote importer worked okay for me with this page. Does anyone know of a better way?

[BigChungus]

Dynalist is still the best as far as I can tell

To move a doc you pretty much just select-all and paste into logseq. I don’t think any importer tool is needed. If that doesn’t work, click “Export” on the doc and use “plain text” mode - that will be markdown. The select-all, copy, paste int oa logseq doc. Surely logseq will accept that perfectly since it is markdown itself.

Since moving from dynalist to logseq (or any other service) world require all of 37 seconds of total effort for me, I have zero plans to pre-emptively migrate. I’ll leave dynalist the moment it dies (but I bet it doesnt die, its their first pet project and seems basic to maintain indefinately)

[Cleroth]

RemNote actually seems a lot more polished than Dynalist. Getting fed up with issues on Dynalist that aren’t getting fixed because it’s been completely abandoned. Very frustrating to pay for a service monthly and have no updates for ~3 years. Not even gonna try out their Obsidian alternative. I’mma just spend my money elsewhere.

[CendaCZ]

I think people who actually use it won’t even be on the forums unless they have a notable time to do so (or need help recovering data) - as it’s that good (in my opinion). In my experience there were very few practically important things/requests to eventually change/add, since the system/limitations are well in place to have the best of both worlds.

I’ve tried plethora of apps and I regularly check for alternatives in other areas, but in the end nothing came close to Dynalist.

I regulary help at least translate open apps or request important improvements but I may gladly say, here it wasn’t the case, despite using it almost daily for over a year.

I’m one of the grateful users that appreciates the attention to detail of many decisions/considerations that went into the app and it’s QoL and interoperability. And now, being now mostly dependant on it (from thoughts to realization, management and archiving (resources/education/recall) QuickDynalist app is making it more practical for input (some cases) on mobile devices, I just wish for it to be there as long as possible. Hopefully there’ll be other 'Pro’s as well

RemNote seems viable but I left it for very bad performance (comparably) + I didn't need it's features that may complicate it a bit - the way you can create systems in dynalist is good enough and likely faster

(its free options (accessibility) were one of the main factors I praise it so much and gladly pay for Pro even as a student)

[Alex_Avenarius]

Greetings to my western neighbor @CendaCZ.

There have been many outages in Dynalist for me over the last couple of weeks. Previously as well, but it’s been particularly bad over the last few weeks.

To the point where I’ve already set up my initial RemNote account. The import of my Dynalist database there failed, because it’s a large database. I would have to start from scratch with RemNote, I guess.

There’s an intro offer of a free 15-minute call for new RemNote users, which I might accept later on.

I really wish Dynalist would get their stuff together so that I don’t have to switch to RemNote.

I’m fine with the current Dynalist feature-set. No improvements are needed, from my point of view.

However, if you can’t rely on Dynalist to be able to access your notes around the clock, it’s really becoming necessary to look for an alternative.

[Alan]

The outages have been acknowledged in discord, and according to the developers the unusual circumstance that brought it on has been resolved, and the code should be much better for preventing future outages of this sort. (The cause was a user overwhelming the system through the API. It wasn’t malicious, but it did nevertheless cause problems.)

[Alex_Avenarius]

Well, that’s what @Shida reported yesterday, but there was yet another pretty prolonged outage (10 or 15 minutes?) earlier today, so it doesn’t seem like everything is flawless again.

I’ll be patient, of course, but when you need to get urgent work done and you rely on Dynalist to be able to access your notes, then waiting for 10 or 15 minutes for the outage to go away can seem like eternity.

By the way, one thing I like about RemNote is the option to purchase a lifetime subscription. I’m considering that.

I wish there was an option for a lifetime subscription for Dynalist. As I mentioned, I’m fine with the current feature set, no functionality improvements are really needed for me (although there certainly are bugs and many improvement opportunities) – just stability and reliability is needed most of all, from my point of view.

[Alan]

George was asking why people avoid web browsers and prefer the app. This is one reason. If things are slow server side, the app can keep going. I do also use the browser at times though.

[Alex_Avenarius]

That’s too dangerous for me. I use Dynalist simultaneously on many mobile devices and on 2 desktop computers. I’m always nervous when using the mobile apps, fearing I might be working on an older version of a note (due to failed sync), and that what I’m currently typing might get lost/overwritten later on when syncing resumes. And it does happen sometimes. So at least on the desktop, I purposely avoid the dedicated app, relying on the “Synced” notification in the top-right corner of the browser window.

[Mark_Wood]

@digego2762

I was using Dynalist for a while, and was a big fan, but the updates have died off. The team seems understandably distracted by obsidian’s success, which makes sense. I’m exploring switching to logseq or remnote. Not as polished as dynalist, but seem much more active and powerful, so I’m going to try to switch.

Has anyone tried exporting their notes into one of these other tools? I couldn’t find an importer for logseq. The remnote importer worked okay for me with this page . Does anyone know of a better way?

I faced the same with Dynalist. Haven’t found a Logseq importer but RemNote’s worked decently for me. any alternatives?

[Alex_Avenarius]

Well, I did it: I launched Obsidian for my everyday use a couple of days ago, purchasing both the Sync and Publish addons. Obsidian is terrific, but I don’t think it can fully replace Dynalist – not now, and likely never.

If you’d like to read about my impressions of Obsidian, from the point of view of a “Dynalist fanatic”, head over to the Obsidian forum, where I made my first post earlier today:

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/newbie-user-long-time-dynalist-user-obsidian-first-impressions/73936

As I mention there, it would be a nice gesture if a lifetime licence option were introduced for Dynalist, at an appropriate price, given that Dynalist is no longer being developed, despite several bugs remaining unresolved (nothing really serious).

[FM]

I don’t think lifetime license would work, as it is based on constantly selling new licenses to pay ongoing services expenses.

I stay with Dynalist, as it just do what I need without disturbing marketing pressure and glamour and feature overkill. For me arround 50$ per year (with XMAS-Special) is absolutely fair to keep it running. Last year I missed the promotion so I stayed a free user. Have worked for me either. But I am happy to be pro again, now.

There are some things I really would like to have - e.g. an option to fold notes in search results by default. Perhaps they will give dynalist to the community sometime?

So far I am happy if they keep the service stable running!

[Alex_Avenarius]

Yup, $50 per year is an excellent deal. $100, not so much. I mean, while we were getting those enthusiastic updates every month, it seemed like a good deal, although a little bit on the expensive side (compared to similar software), if truth be told.

Naturally, there really is no similar software (to me, at least): not similar in quality, that is. That’s why I was happy to be paying the $100 per year, and (dare I say it; hope no one’s listening…) would have likely paid even more, because Dynalist is so valuable for me. I truly can’t imagine my life without it, although I can already see that Obsidian can take over a large portion of what I’ve been tracking using Dynalist until now. Not everything, though – that likewise appears to be certain, given Obsidian’s current feature set, although it’s sure to be growing and expanding in future. The (currently) 1,371 Obsidian community plugins are a ridiculous treasure trove – everyone is highly likely to find dozens of plugins in there useful for their particular everyday needs. Still, the plugins don’t accomplish everything, not for now at least, and although some (as I have observed) attempt to imitate Dynalist’s functionality, they’re not very successful at it, compared to “the real thing” (Dynalist).

As I’ve just mentioned on Reddit, if lifetime licences aren’t an option for Dynalist, despite it only being “maintainware” now, perhaps licence bundling might be a possibility? Who knows – if you get a Dynalist discount as long as you also purchase Obsidian subscriptions, perhaps this would motivate more current Dynalist subscribers to give Obsidian a try also?

It would simply be nice if someone told us: “OK, you have purchased the 1-year Dynalist subscription + 1-year Obsidian Sync subscription + 1-year Obsidian Publish subscription – so instead of $300 per year, we’re only going to charge you $250 per year.”

I rely on Dynalist so much (it truly is my “second brain”) I can’t afford to discontinue my Pro subscription (nope – not even for a day) just to be able to get something like the Christmas deal that you got. So I guess I’ll have to keep paying those $100 per year “forever”. 🤷