This is going to be a strange endorsement for Standard Notes, which I haven't seen talked about much here.

This is a fairly robust Evernote replacement, with apps for iOS, MacOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and the web. It's number one feature is encryption and security. With a subscription you can keep all of your apps in sync, as well as use a number of extensions to add functionality to the plain text editor (such as markdown in various styles).

The reason this is a strange endorsement is that I bought the five year subscription (which makes the price $3 per month). And it worked like I expected. But I realized I didn't need it (the Drafts for Mac beta helped convince me of that), so I took advantage of their 30-day refund policy. Within an hour I had my refund courteously processed. In short, I was impressed with the customer service. And the app is pretty good.

Anyway, if you're looking for a plain text note taker that has almost universal access, I suggest taking a look at Standard Notes:

https://standardnotes.org/

Steve Z.

What do you think would be the advantage of this over something like Joplin which seems more powerful and popular?

I don't have any experience with Joplin.

thouqht wrote:

What do you think would be the advantage of this over something like
Joplin which seems more powerful and popular?

I had never heard of Joplin until I read your post. Looking at the Joplin site, and reading a few reviews, I am interested, and plan to download it. The only drawback I see is the markdown - for me rich text is simpler and preferable. However, I could probably learn to live with markdown if everything else on Joplin is good.

I am fed up with Evernote because it no long clips a complete page to my Android phone, just the basic information. EN wasn't able to correct the problem. Now I use Pocket for all my web clipping, and actually find it better. So for writing and notes I will try out Joplin.

Daly

thouqht wrote:

What do you think would be the advantage of this over something like
Joplin which seems more powerful and popular?

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

It's number one feature is encryption and security.

Thanks for this. While I'm happy with Evernote for collecting existing material, I am interested in something more simple and private for my own notes. Simplenote is simple but not secure enough.

Do I understand correctly that Standards Notes is plain text only?

Hi, Alexander,

Yes, it is plain text only. However, when you purchase a subscription, you have access to extensions, several of which provide a markdown interface within the editor.

Steve

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>It's number one feature is encryption and security.

Thanks for this. While I'm happy with Evernote for collecting existing
material, I am interested in something more simple and private for my
own notes. Simplenote is simple but not secure enough.

Do I understand correctly that Standards Notes is plain text only?

@ Steve: Thanks, plain text should be enough for what I have in mind but markdown is even better.

@ thought: Thanks for the heads up on Joplin. I was surprised to have not heard of it before, then found that it's been mentioned before here, e.g. by Madaboutdana at https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/8080
It's grown since then, now using most popular cloud solutions for syncing.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Yes, it is plain text only. However, when you purchase a subscription,
you have access to extensions, several of which provide a markdown
interface within the editor.

Just to follow-up with what Steve wrote, with a subscription you can turn on the Text Plus extension ** which also allows for Rich Text ** as well as Markdown.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Hi, Alexander,

Yes, it is plain text only. However, when you purchase a subscription,
you have access to extensions, several of which provide a markdown
interface within the editor.

Steve

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>>It's number one feature is encryption and security.
>
>Thanks for this. While I'm happy with Evernote for collecting existing
>material, I am interested in something more simple and private for my
>own notes. Simplenote is simple but not secure enough.
>
>Do I understand correctly that Standards Notes is plain text only?

Thanks, definitely nice to have!

Donovan wrote:

Just to follow-up with what Steve wrote, with a subscription you can
turn on the Text Plus extension ** which also allows for Rich Text ** as
well as Markdown.

A happy user here with the five-year plan (before they changed the price).

As previously mentioned, the main selling point is security and encryption. It's another place I trusted other than my password manager, so I stored personal diary and 2FA backup passwords in it. I also use it to store normal notes as well.

The developer keep updating the apps so I have the confidence it will continuously have the support and hope they keep their promise. (https://standardnotes.org/longevity

Compared to Joplin, I think the UI is more polished even though it's on the minimal/simplicity side. Also note that Joplin does not keep your content encrypted locally - it only keep the synced content (what saved in the cloud) encrypted. Standard Notes also provides the password lock for all apps and Touch ID on iOS, which is not provided by Joplin. (The password lock use a different password that the one for encryption, so you can use a stronger password for encryption but still keep your daily use safe.)

I like Joplin mainly because the Markdown support is arguably better and it supports tree-structure folders, but the UI is clumsy especially on mobile. I only got to know how to use the mobile app after I set up some notes on the desktop.

This thread continues to interest me. Is there anyone else with experience contrasting Standard Notes and Joplin. I'm moving in a big way to the Chromebook, and Joplin doesn't seem to have a web browser version. While I understand the attraction of encryption (not that my Simplenotes files have anything earth-shattering in them), it also means that there web searching is nil--can't search an encrypted file (although I guess the local clients might do that).

Anything else I should know about the differences between them?

Last I checked Standard Notes could not search within PDF attachments. I don't know about Joplin.