Free Software (FOSS)-Based Note-Taking on Your Personal Cloud with Zim Desktop Wiki and Syncthing
Podcast: The Health, Science & Technology Podcast
Episode: 8
Title: Free Software (FOSS)-Based Note-Taking on Your Personal Cloud with Zim Desktop Wiki and Syncthing
Produced by: Djere Services Group
Free Software (FOSS) used in Production: Pop!_OS GNU/Linux, Shotcut, GIMP, Zim Desktop Wiki
Proprietary Software used in production: Gemini Notebook
Release Date: October 13, 2026
Associated article: https://djere.com/free-software-foss-based-note-taking-on-your-personal-cloud-with-zim-desktop-wiki-and-syncthing.html
A. Executive Summary
Welcome! I wrote this article and produced the associated video to share how I combine two immensely popular Free Software (FOSS) applications, Zim Desktop Wiki and Syncthing, to create a highly efficient personal cloud. The fundamental problem that this workflow solves is allowing individuals and businesses to maintain a private, locally hosted personal knowledge base without relying on proprietary cloud storage services. Zim serves as a graphical text editor that stores notes as local plain text files, while Syncthing operates as a decentralized, peer-to-peer daemon program to synchronize those files securely across multiple computers on a network.
By integrating these tools across operating systems such as Pop!_OS GNU/Linux and Fedora GNU/Linux, I've obtained a true superpower for my daily computing. This system makes all of my critical data, from technical business records to my saxophone practice music, automatically portable and immediately accessible whether I'm at home or on the road. Ultimately, combining Zim and Syncthing has provided a life-changing workflow change, helping me to organize my information meticulously and allowing my memory to work far more efficiently.
Keywords: Zim Desktop Wiki, Syncthing, Free Software, FOSS, GNU/Linux, Pop!_OS, Fedora, personal cloud, file synchronization, personal knowledge base
B. Introduction
I've been using Zim desktop wiki for years and it has become an invaluable part of my workflow. I literally use it for everything: writing articles, taking notes, keeping records, and brainstorming ideas. However, I obtained a true superpower when I created a personal cloud using Syncthing so that I could access my Zim notebooks from any computer in my home. Zim desktop wiki is a graphical text editor that stores your notes as local personal wiki pages. Syncthing is a peer-to-peer file synchronization utility that allows you to synchronize files between computers in a network. In theory, you could combine Syncthing with a Free Software (FOSS) software-defined mesh virtual private network (VPN) such as Tailscale to synchronize files between two or more computers anywhere in the world, even computers in different countries.
In this article/video, I'll carefully describe how combining the power in Zim with the power of Syncthing made my technical life so much easier and so much more rewarding.
C. The History of Zim Desktop Wiki: What Problem Does it Solve?
The fundamental problem that Zim desktop wiki solves is allowing people to maintain a personal knowledge base that resides on their own computer: not in the cloud on a computer that someone else owns. Zim was created by software developer Jaap Karssenberg in 2005 (see References A1, A2, and A3). He originally wrote the software in the Perl programming language, but he completely rewrote Zim in Python in 2009. When designing Zim, Karssenberg was motivated by the principles of openness and standards compliance. Zim uses no proprietary databases to store data: notes are stored as plain text files with wiki formatting. The wiki formatting is a hybrid of two syntaxes: DokuWiki and Markdown.
Zim is an extremely popular project on GitHub: as of August 21, 2026, it has 174 contributors, 22 pull requests, and 4 branches. In terms of public acceptance and popularity, Zim has a 2.2 thousand-star rating on GitHub. Zim is mostly written in Python: about 96.2% of the code is Python, 2.1% is HTML, and 0.5% is JavaScript. An individual can build Zim from its GitHub source code. It is also available as a binary executable on most GNU/Linux distributions, and it is also available for Windows and MacOS.
There's not a lot of information about Zim on YouTube, but I did find a couple of excellent videos about Zim (see References A4 and A5).
D. The History of Syncthing: What Problem Does it Solve?
Syncthing is a very different piece of software from Zim, and it is designed to solve a completely different problem. While Zim is written in Python, Syncthing is written in the Go programming language. Syncthing solves the problem of file synchronization by allowing users to securely synchronize files between devices on a local network or between remote devices over the Internet (see References B1, B2, and B3). Syncthing runs as a decentralized, peer-to-peer daemon program that synchronizes files directly between computers. For example, on my home network, I have a small, low-power server computer that runs a Syncthing node. I then designate a folder that I want synchronized between all of the computers on my home network. Syncthing is also installed on all of my other computer systems. Then, all of these Syncthing peers coordinate to keep the designated folder synchronized across all the machines. So, if I edit my Zim desktop wiki notebook on one machine, I can open the same notebook on any other machine on my network, and I'll see the updated version.
The Syncthing project was started by software developer Jakob Borg in 2013. When building Syncthing, Borg envisioned it as a Free Software, privacy-respecting alternative to proprietary file synchronization tools such as BitTorrent Sync (now called Resilio Sync) and centralized cloud storage services such as Dropbox.
One huge similarity between Zim and Syncthing is that they are both hosted on GitHub. Like Zim, Syncthing is an immensely popular project on GitHub: as of August 21, 2026, it has 17 pull requests, 345 contributors, and a rating of 87.9 thousand stars. Syncthing's source code is 84.6% Go, 7.1% HTML, and 5.7% JavaScript.
Evidence that Syncthing is an incredibly popular project: on June 23, 2024, the YouTube channel "Lawrence Systems" released a Syncthing tutorial video that has over 200,000 views as of August 21, 2026 (see Reference B4).
E. Using Zim and Syncthing Together on a Personal Cloud
Syncthing is an incredibly powerful tool that makes all of my data extremely and automatically portable between all of the devices on my home computing network. For example, all of my saxophone practice music is available on both my main desktop computer and my laptop. This means that whether I'm home or on the road, my music is always available to me for saxophone practice sessions. Syncthing just gets out of your way: all file synchronization is done privately, quietly, and continuously in the background. To be honest, when I'm computing, I have no indication that Syncthing is working: it just works incredibly reliably.
So, all of the effort of setting things up typically happens once, and then you can continue to run Syncthing for years after the initial setup. On my main desktop computer, I run Pop!_OS GNU/Linux. On my home server computer, I run Fedora GNU/Linux. Syncthing runs seamlessly on both operating systems. So, all I have to do is open one of my Zim notebooks on my desktop computer and enter important information. That information will then be available to all of the computers in my Syncthing network. For example, I often do work on my laptop while I'm on the road. Since my Zim notebooks were all synchronized before I left, I can continue to work in my notebooks on my laptop while I'm on the road. When I get back home, Syncthing will synchronize any changes that I made on my laptop back to the rest of the network.
Creating a personal cloud with Syncthing has been a life-changing workflow change for both me and my business. Keeping my notes in Syncthing has made me far more organized, and when you take meticulous notes, it changes how your mind works. When you organize all of your information, your memory works far more efficiently. It's almost as if when you organize your notes in Zim, you are creating virtual filing cabinets in your mind that correspond to your physical notes.
Thank you for taking so much of your valuable time and energy to read this article and/or watch its associated video. I look forward to seeing you again in Episode 9 of the Health, Science & Technology Podcast!
F. References
[A1] Zim (software) (Wikipedia). Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[A2] Zim homepage. Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[A3] Zim desktop wiki GitHub page. Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[A4] How to Install Zim Desktop Wiki on Ubuntu 20.04 - 22.04 (YouTube video posted on June 19, 2025). Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[A5] Organize Your Notes with Zim Wiki (YouTube video posted on October 10, 2020). Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[B1] Syncthing (Wikipedia). Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[B2] Syncthing homepage. Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[B3] Syncthing's source code on GitHub. Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here
[B4] Syncthing Tutorial: Open Source & Private File Sync Made Simple (YouTube). Retrieved August 21, 2026 from here