Something to think about, if it’s important to you. I went through this same journey. I had been using Day one, which is a beautiful app. But I began considering what would happen to those entries when I’m dead and gone. It’s important that my wife and kids can read through the years if the desire. That lead me in a search for something that has the most “future proof” journaling approach. Something that would still be easily readable without a bunch of exporting or conversion should the company go out of business.
Obsidian is one of many apps that at its core, is simple text files in folders on your local machine(s). As others have said you can self host rather than paying for their home grown sync solution. I’ve tried Joplin, Logseq, Trillium, Memos, and I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting. They have all had some level of dealbreaker for me. Like Logseq has a horrible android app. Memos stores entries inside a database, so not easily retrievable. And Joplin adds meta data to the contents of your text files as well as screwing up the file/folder names to something that isn’t human readable. So I’ve stuck with Obsidian. It’s not open source, but the file format is platform agnostic and can be read by just about any computer or mobile device made in decades.
That said, you won’t get the calendar features with dates/locations of photos like you mentioned unless someone has made a plugin for it.
I’ve tried 'em all. And I am always on the lookout for new apps that can do what I want. So far, Obsidian is the best.
Joplin: adds meta data to your text files making it nearly impossible to find anything outside of Joplin unless you export
Logseq: the closest substitute to Obsidian. The android app is almost unusable in my testing. And it’s an outlined based note app, so it requires a different mindset
Silverbullet: such a neat project. The PWA runs great on every device I’ve tried it on. That said, I find it hard to navigate and will require more learning to take full advantage of its features
Nextcloud Notes: decent if you already have an instance running. Not worth it just for Notes though. It’s very spartan, feature-wise
Quillpad: the closest Google Keep alternative I’ve found so far. Does require Nextcloud insurance to sync though. At least currently.
Acreom: very cool project. Similar to Obsidian and Logseq. Local first…unless you’re on mobile, then you are required to have an account and use their sync.
Notesnook: has great features but does not store the notes on plain text (due to encryption), which is a deal breaker for my use case
Memos: very easy to selfhost. Think of it like a personal twitter feed. Stores entries in a db file, so it’s out for me
I tested others, and many didnt last long enough in my testing to even be worth writing about. I find Obsidian’s folder hierarchy easier to fit around how my brain works. And the plain text files in folders, maintaining the hierarchy, is a killer feature for me. Lots of folks self host a sync solution. And I want to but am currently paying for their basic sync plan of $5/mo.