We live in a golden age of note-taking applications, which is to say we have way more than we need. If you're anything like me the myriad choices sap my productivity through my undiscipline hopping from one app to another. To try to make some sense of this, and because there hasn't been a posting on this forum in a while, I thought I'd throw out some of my half-baked impressions of the apps, presented here in no particular order.

Obsidian. A great app, but it gives me the heebee jeebies to put so much reliance in plug-in developers with no real motivation to keep developing/supporting them other than their good will. Local storage is nice.

Roam Research. Credited with creating the genre, though I'd give that crown to Connected Text. Still, Roam set a standard that people have been copying. Too expensive (though the rising cost of these apps has reduced that gap) and the developer is kind of an asshole, or so I've read.

Notion. This is one of the apps (along with Tana) that I would call a DIY app. By that I mean to get the most from it you really need to invest time and creative juice building your own system. I don't have the patience (and perhaps not the brain power) to do this.

Tana. As mentioned above, Tana is a DIY app, To get the most from it, you need to build your own structures with its supertag feature.

Remnote. I've used Remnote and like it. My main hesitation about adopting it fully is that they put a lot of development effort into the student-centered features, which I have no need for. But Remnote offers offline access to your notes, which is a nice benefit.

Reflect. Probably the least feature-rich app on this list, which is likely the reason I find it offers the least friction for capturing details. But some features really are missed, such as the ability to focus on a single node. They did recently add the ability to drag and drop nodes around (long overdue, but welcome), so there is hope. They are also, supposedly, working on a task module.

Amplenote. Speaking of task module, Amplenote feels like the whole thing is a task module... and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Just not the focus I want. And, I find the UI to be cluttered, as if I can't see the trees because of the forest.

Capacities. I fee like Capacities straddles the line between the DIY apps and simpler apps, like Remnote or Reflect (and for the record, I'm not equating the Remnote to Reflect, the former being far more feature-rich). It's a tempting choice for me, but I would really need to get used to its object-oriented approach, which doesn't feel intuitive.

Walling. I've called Walling, Notion with training wheels. Like Notion, it allows you to put a lot of different types of resources on its walls (which would be pages in Notion). And it has built in options for structuring the walls, with sections and display options (boards, calendars, etc.). It is a very sophisticated app, but its UI is just too busy to make it intuitive for me.

xTiles. Kind of a Walling-lite. Very attractive though. xTiles feels more like a scrap book. But it is neither fish nor foul. That is, it doesn't have enough features to be a project management option, nor a place to drop most of your notes.

Scrintal. Developing nicely -- if slowly. Scrintal is a highly attractive app, a collection of white-boards on which to pin cards that connect through links. I have used Scrintal for thinking through and connecting ideas and information for some specific projects, but it doesn't feel like the go to app for collecting all my notes. And it doesn't do tasks yet.

Heptabase. While it feels a little less refined than Scrintal, Heptabase actually is more powerful. It does mind maps and allows you to label the visual links, so it can handle concept mapping. And it stores your files locally. Still, it doesn't feel like it can be my go-to app for all my information.

This is probably a long enough list. I have ignored older apps like Evernote and TheBrain. Workflowy, Dynalist and Legend could have a place on this list, but they are generally outlining apps, so I've left them out too. I've undoubtedly missed other apps.

If you have thoughts on these apps, or if you have other apps you believe belong in this discussion, please talk about them. I welcome contrary views.

I am using Reflect as my main note taking app, and I'm relatively pleased with it and am hoping that it will grow.

Steve

I'll add Anytype - it's just on the point of moving to an open beta. Like Notion, it needs investment to get the best from it. Its main selling point right now is that it's E2E encrypted and will (later this year) allow for self-hosting.

I appreciate your list, but am curious why you did not mention Logseq - which is often referenced in the same breath as Obsidian or Roam. Thanks.

Daly

For open-source and free (though with pay versions available in the Mac and iOS app stores) there's FSnotes

https://fsnot.es/

Apple Notes continues to be rock solid, cross-platform and with a web version, able to handle thousands (if not tens of thousands) of notes, and continues to be developed (new version coming this fall includes document linking).

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/06/apple-notes-create-links-between-notes/

Agenda continues to be a very nice, well-supported app, and I've been using it for some things. Dev participates in the Discourse forum. Price/performance is terriffic, as is its unique freemium pricing model.

https://agenda.com/
https://agenda.community/

As a hardcore outliner I want to use Logseq more than I do (which is barely). I prefer its design and plugin philosophy over Obsidian's, and it is approaching version 1.0

https://logseq.com/

If I want to bang out some text I'll sometimes reach for BBEdit, which I've used literally for decades now.

https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/

But if I want to quickly work in Markdown I reach for MWeb Pro, which I picked up years ago for less than $5 (it's now $20 on the Mac and $9 to unlock the nice iOS app).

https://www.mweb.im/

My longform text processor and repository on macOS/iOS remains Ulysses, but I don't use it for notes.

https://ulysses.app/

I meant to say, but forgot, that I didn't include Logseq because I haven't tried it.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

I appreciate your list, but am curious why you did not mention Logseq -
which is often referenced in the same breath as Obsidian or Roam.
Thanks.

Daly

For the record, Reflect has E2E encryption... some of the others may as well.

NickG wrote:

I'll add Anytype - it's just on the point of moving to an open beta.
Like Notion, it needs investment to get the best from it. Its main
selling point right now is that it's E2E encrypted and will (later this
year) allow for self-hosting.

I am happy that you added these. I did mean to mention that my list is compiled of apps that can be used on either a Windows PC or Mac, mostly through being browser apps. But other options are very welcome.

satis wrote:

For open-source and free (though with pay versions available in the Mac
and iOS app stores) there's FSnotes

https://fsnot.es/

Apple Notes continues to be rock solid, cross-platform and with a web
version, able to handle thousands (if not tens of thousands) of notes,
and continues to be developed (new version coming this fall includes
document linking).

https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/06/apple-notes-create-links-between-notes/

Agenda continues to be a very nice, well-supported app, and I've been
using it for some things. Dev participates in the Discourse forum.
Price/performance is terriffic, as is its unique freemium pricing model.

https://agenda.com/
https://agenda.community/

As a hardcore outliner I want to use Logseq more than I do (which is
barely). I prefer its design and plugin philosophy over Obsidian's, and
it is approaching version 1.0

https://logseq.com/

If I want to bang out some text I'll sometimes reach for BBEdit, which
I've used literally for decades now.

https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/

But if I want to quickly work in Markdown I reach for MWeb Pro, which I
picked up years ago for less than $5 (it's now $20 on the Mac and $9 to
unlock the nice iOS app).

https://www.mweb.im/

My longform text processor and repository on macOS/iOS remains Ulysses,
but I don't use it for notes.

https://ulysses.app/

I still use OneNote as my main note-taking app. It's very annoying at times (occasionally the slow updating between my computer and my phone, and the weak tagging sytem), but it's reliable on the whole and probably will not disappear in the future.

I also depend on UpNote: very elegant and speedy. Outstanding in many ways; its main weaknesses are that you cannot search the text of attached PDFs and a certain uneasiness about its long-term prospects.

WSP

UpNote is a truly cross-platform solution. It might be the closest thing Windows users get to a basic Apple Notes experience, albeit in the relatively-insecure format of an Electron app.

They have periodically changed the available fonts. They used to offer the serif font Lora (wrongly calling it Lato, its sans serif sister-font), before removing it completely. A shame!

The web clipper is a nice touch, and the links between notes, theming, backup options and output formats are well done. But after years the menubar 'entry' is still bogus - it only exists if the app is running, and you can't enter anything from it (in macOS, at any rate) - all it does it invoke the app and bring it forward with a new entry window. (Other apps' menubar apps persist when the app is quit, and you can enter/edit notes from a small window.)

Although I bought the Pro unlock a couple of years ago I'm still dubious about the developer's ability to offer the promised lifetime of unlimited storage for that one-time $20 charge. This is part of the reason I don't use the app - I think the penny will drop, sooner than later, and people will either have to start paying more or will have to migrate their files out of the app.

There are some old standards that should get a mention.

- Devonthink
- TheBrain
- Tinderbox

I remain a fan of Curio, too. It takes very low effort to produce notes and thoughts in a polished format. Whatever it costs in a few extra mouse clicks it rewards with a pleasant arrangement of thoughts.

Has anyone tried TheArchive? https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/#the-archive

Thanks Stephen

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I meant to say, but forgot, that I didn't include Logseq because I
haven't tried it.

Daly de Gagne wrote:
I appreciate your list, but am curious why you did not mention Logseq -
>which is often referenced in the same breath as Obsidian or Roam.
>Thanks.
>
>Daly

WSP - thanks for noting "the weak tagging system" of OneNote. It is absolutely mind boggling that an app with the pretensions of OneNote and created by the mighty Microsoft has coasted along for years with such a bad tagging system. Also mind boggling is how some of the seemingly independent YouTube channels refer so uncritically to OneNotes' tagging capability. Surely, if they have any knowledge of note-taking software beyond OneNote, they should know that far better tagging systems are on offer. OneNote's tagging system is the main reason I don't use the app. - Daly

WSP wrote:

I still use OneNote as my main note-taking app. It's very annoying at
times (occasionally the slow updating between my computer and my phone,
and the weak tagging sytem), but it's reliable on the whole and probably
will not disappear in the future.

I also depend on UpNote: very elegant and speedy. Outstanding in many
ways; its main weaknesses are that you cannot search the text of
attached PDFs and a certain uneasiness about its long-term prospects.

WSP

Totally agree about Curio – extraordinary app (although the absolutely free Growly Notes is an entertaining alternative, albeit nowhere near as powerful).

I have tried TheArchive, but abandoned it after some experimentation. It's a perfectly good app, but is being very slow to actualise its roadmap, and the current functionality can be duplicated in any number of more powerful note taking apps (including e.g. Simplenote, which hasn't yet been mentioned).

An app I've been looking forward to for a couple of years is nvUltra, ostensibly an alternative turbocharged nvAlt currently under development by Brett Terpstra. But there's been little sign of movement in recent months, and I've started to think it isn't going anywhere.

I too am impressed by UpNote – the developer is extremely responsive, and I still use it quite a lot. But increasingly, I use Bear, version 2.0 of which is due out imminently, because it has such a good web capture extension (UpNote's is pretty good, too, and works across multiple browsers), and is such a pleasure to use. The new version is clearly intended to compete with Obsidian, Roam etc., and I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Other cross-platform apps worth mentioning include Craft, which is going from strength to strength (and produces astonishingly good-looking e-mails, albeit only if you use Apple Mail), and of course Notebooks, which runs on Windows as well as all the Apple OSes. Notebooks has seen some elegant improvements lately, and is still one of my favourites for writing.

Finally, I have given way to temptation and acquired a reMarkable 2 tablet, which is truly impressive. Not least because the desktop/mobile app does allow you to use it as part of a seamless workflow. The number of third-party enhancements out there is pretty cool, as well, allowing you to load your own templates (although I've found you can easily use a PDF file as a template without doing any complicated SSH tunnelling or using expensive third-party apps). There is indeed something very satisfying about keeping track of daily tasks simply by writing them down – the nice thing about the reMarkable is that you can copy and paste unfinished tasks (or anything else, for that matter) to subsequent daily pages. The graphic capabilities are understated but very powerful. Yes, I should probably have opted for a Kindle Scribe instead, but I got a referrer's discount (€40!) and in any case don't wish to put my entire writing/reading life in the hands of Amazon. I didn't get a reMarkable stylus, incidentally – I opted for the Staedtler Noris Jumbo pencil-alike, which works very well and is about a third of the price.

Amontillado wrote:

I remain a fan of Curio, too. It takes very low effort to produce notes
and thoughts in a polished format. Whatever it costs in a few extra
mouse clicks it rewards with a pleasant arrangement of thoughts.

Has anyone tried TheArchive?
https://zettelkasten.de/posts/overview/#the-archive

Ah, I would also mention NotePlan, which is, like Agenda, an impressive mixture of journal, task manager and notetaker. It's also very expensive, but under constant development.

And would also agree that MWeb Pro is an amazing markdown editor for a very reasonable price, with steadily developer support.

Finally, don't forget the very elegant Typora, one of the nicest markdown editors out there (and very reasonably priced).

I have been a fan of Curio, but it is only available as a Mac app, which puts it out of the running for me. The same is true of Agenda and Noteplan, either of which, if it had a browser version, would be on my list.

I should have mentioned UpNote and OneNote in my original list. I actually use OneNote a lot at work. It is where we store our team knowledge, accessible for my colleagues. I have been reluctant to use it for my own information management needs because -- in the past -- the Mac version was so much more limited than the PC version. And it felt like Microsoft was driving users to rely its cloud storage, which I was not fond of. But the Mac version has gotten better, so maybe it's time to give it another go. I still have some pages in OneNote I created almost 20 years ago, when it first was introduced.

Steve

Oh, yes. And Craft.

I should have had craft on my original list. I use it a lot. But I think of it more as a writing app than a notes app, more like Ulysses than Evernote. I'm a little leary of Craft, only because they seem to be concentrating development on collaboration and sharing, and I wonder if solo users like me have to accept that we're not going to get any new features. It's already pretty damn good, so that might just be fine.

Steve

Another note-worthy information manager is Twos. The developers are pretty nerdy, so it is hard at first to take this app seriously. But in fact they have created a very useful application for taking notes, track todos and more across all your devices. The price is incredibly low -- in fact, I couldn't believe how inexpensive it is, so I assumed I didn't understand the pricing structure. Anyway, I don't use Twos yet, but I'm considering it.

Steve

I'm glad someone mentioned Twos. I tried it out for an extended period, but stopped due to similar reasons - strange marketing with daily videos eating oatmeal implying that their ultimate goal was get taken over by Google and no clear indication of sustainable pricing.

Probably the best digital implementation of bullet journaling I have come across.

Nigel

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Another note-worthy information manager is Twos. The developers are
pretty nerdy, so it is hard at first to take this app seriously. But in
fact they have created a very useful application for taking notes, track
todos and more across all your devices. The price is incredibly low --
in fact, I couldn't believe how inexpensive it is, so I assumed I didn't
understand the pricing structure. Anyway, I don't use Twos yet, but I'm
considering it.

Steve

Thank you for bringing Mweb Pro to attention. I didn't know that this app has a menu bar. I have been looking for sth like that.
I have been using FoldingText for years to jot down my (daily) logs. I like to keep those in a single file.
The menu bar of MWeb seems even better for the job because it can float over other apps.

Interesting list and thoughts. From the list, I am using Walling as a kind of planning/bookmarking/research board since it has a decent web clipper and is quite flexible as information comes available and is read. Was a bit surprised that Milanote and Notejoy were not mentioned. I have looked at both, but have found them as a good alternative or add to my toolbox these days.

--Ken

Interesting that this post was done today. Zoho Notebook https://www.zoho.com/notebook just announced a new feature to enhance note-taking: Embrace the future of note-taking with Noteboard

https://www.zoho.com/blog/notebook/embrace%20the%20future%20of%20note-taking%20with%20noteboard.html

Remnotes' easy flashcard creation and other student-centric features seem so useful for my upcoming studies. I have an online account and decided to download the desktop app which they claim works fully offline. Turns out you can't do anything without logging in first. I found this to be misleading, since the impression they gave was that you can also use the app without needing an account locally. But maybe it was a wrong assumption on my part.

I'll probably go back to Supermemo for spaced repetition. It's not great, but at least it's private.

This is an impressive list of software; should induce several months of CRIMPing, if not a whole year.

I see the point about Obsidian plugins, and share the concern about the lack of economic motivation for plugin developers. Although i use a lot of plugins, the only one I use that leaves its own text inside my notes is Dataview. I limit its use to specific notes where I keep Dataview queries, lists, and tables. If Dataview went bust, or if I leave Obsidian, there is only a small footprint left behind in only a certain group of non-essential notes. I also figure that Obsidian would probably buy out Dataview before they let it die.

I could have -- and should have -- mentioned both Milanote and Notejoy. I really like Milanote and have used it some what, especially to share photo options with others. I also like Notejoy -- which feels a lot like an online version of Bear. Notejoy is primarily a collaboration service, though they offer a solo plan, but that's why I am a little cautious about committing to it... most of the developmental effort goes into collaboration functions.

Ken wrote:

Interesting list and thoughts. From the list, I am using Walling as a
kind of planning/bookmarking/research board since it has a decent web
clipper and is quite flexible as information comes available and is
read. Was a bit surprised that Milanote and Notejoy were not mentioned.
I have looked at both, but have found them as a good alternative or add
to my toolbox these days.

--Ken

Another thing about Milanote: I feel as if Scrintal and Heptabase are going to elbow it aside.