When looking for a note-taking app, there were a few features which I was looking for:
Markdown support - support for GitHub flavored markdown.
O...
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Thank you for this article, I think that taking notes is very important, especially to organize next steps and remember the new knowledges while attending a course.
Previously I used OneNote and Evernote, now I am using Google Keep, I think it is the best among these three apps: easy to use, fluid and free.
Google keep is great. I use it on my phone for keeping lists.
Google Keep would be perfect, but the lack of markdown is a killer for me - most of my coding-related notes need code blocks. Also, it's by Google and I'm trying to reduce my use of Google products... That said, Keep also has the best UI/UX of all the apps imo
I really like the drag and dropping and overal veel en useage of the UI from Keep. That 'keeps' me from moving to another platform.
Agreed! Those are the sorts of "little" UX things that make a big difference
Great article, personally my favorite are Typora and Notable. I tried to reproduce it in web application (with mobile support) but I've never finished it. If you're interested you can take a look at nwotable.herokuapp.com/app/
I was pretty impressed with Notable as well. If you only need a desktop app its a great solution!
Nice app by the way! Have you tried to get others to contribute? Is it open source?
Thank you! The application is open source but no one has contributed so far. I don't know how to get visibility and people that enjoy contribute to it.
If you are interested : Source code
Awesome! I really like Notable.! Your app looks great!
I would add archbee.io since it's a notes app MADE for developers.
With Markdown support, GraphiQL, SwaggerUI, changelogs, embedded VS Code, Slack, Github, Trello integration.
Disclaimer: I am the founder of Archbee.
Thanks for the list, Tom.
I really wish Bear had a non-Apple app/alternative. I use both a MacBook Pro and an iPhone, but I also sometimes use a Windows Desktop, meaning I won't always have access to the notes.
Typora looks fantasic though. I'm going to give this a go syncing with Google Drive.
I'm in a similar situation in that I have a Macbook and really like Bear. I keep my ToDos in Notion so that I can access them anywhere. I use Bear mainly for meeting notes and planning blog posts.
You should check out Slite. It has a nice editing experience but also stores notes in the cloud. They have windows, mac and browser apps so it might be a good fit for you.
Hi Tom, I am also building a notes app for developers.
It has multiple developer friendly editors, git sync and many more things that developers require while taking notes. Can you also give it a try?
upnotes.io
I don't see it in the list or in the comments, so I think TiddlyWiki should be mentioned. While not strictly a note-taking app (or even an app, by some definitions) it has some peculiar features, it is free and very upgrade-friendly, and can work without remote services for total privacy.
By the way, I'm planning to use Notion to organize a university course I'll be teaching next fall: its feature set is very interesting for educational use.
I prefer offline note-takers with a quick upload/download cloud storage feature. Cloud services like Evernote and especially Notion are too clunky and distracting for simple notes for me and I end up spending so much time organising instead of note-taking.
On Android, I use the open source Markor app from F-Droid. I have a synced Google Drive folder structure set up and my docs are saved in there automatically. I much prefer this mostly offline, rudimentary approach and by having my files directly accessibile (unlike notion etc) I can choose whichever app(s) I want per platform!
Additional note: I also like this approach because I can use several apps per platform. Your example I might write a blog post in Typora but fiction in Calmly. Again, the direct file approach is much better for this use case!
I'm using roamreasearch.com which I think trounces most of the other services in terms of long term nurturing of ideas and output versus simply hoarding notes for the sake of hoarding notes.
Here's the canonical demo:
youtube.com/watch?v=YcNW-eidDJk
Thanks for the link. I'm going to take a look at this once I have some free time. Looks very cool!
Newer, I really have to mention Znote here as a solution designed for developers.
Znote offers interactive notes to build your personal knowledge base, allowing to prototype directly from Markdown files.
znote.io
Thank you so much for this article!!! Typora is amazing. I would've never known about it if I didn't read this.
Cool post!
Thank you for sharing
I have been using Bear for more than 1 year. I really like it!! I hope it can have a web platform so that I can use it on all my devices 😻
Completely agree. I would likely switch over to Bear as my sole note-taking app if it had a web platform. They did have it on their roadmap, not sure when it will be complete though:
mailchi.mp/shinyfrog/bear-sneak-pe...
The newest version allows you to reorder ToDo items, a feature which I was looking forward to them adding.
What about CherryTree?
It is not supported on Mac. Have you used it? How do you like it?
I used it, first on Linux then on Windows. I really like it, it's free, open-source, fast and organized. Only thing that is missing from it is support for MacOS, iOS and Android.
Nice list, if your privacy conscious I would go with Standard Notes. It's the best out there by far.
Thanks for the post, Tom. I really loved Treepad, but since it ended, I migrated thousands of notes to OneNote 2010 and have been using it since then. I was never going to post all my private data in the MS cloud and now with the constant nagging to upgrade to the cloud version, I got really tired of it and the layout was never great for me anyway. I recently created a homelab server and decided to migrate thousands of notes to self-hosted and open source Trilium in a Docker container. It's really awesome!
wonder where is Trilium Notes.
Even if it's a young app, I would refresh the list with Znote:
dev.to/alagrede/dev-tool-a-markdow...