Ask HN: Favorite note-taking software?

1

OneNote

Before going full Org Mode, I used MS OneNote, and liked it very much. My notes from that period has tons of images and annotated screenshots dumped into them. I miss that in my Emacs workflow nowadays. My dream software would be pieces of Org Mode on a OneNote-like canvas, with support for easily pasting images and drawing on them (especially using a graphics tablet, or at least a touchscreen). And of course with plaintext format (though the attachments could go into directories, automatically managed by the notetaking software).

#Note Taking #Todos #Personal Productivity

2

Simplenote

It probably works very well, but to me it looks a lot like a plaintext encoding of a database record or something. It's a different use case. Not a simple note that is "basically plaintext". For instance I would not feel entirely comfortable editing your example without worrying I'd mess up the structure or produce a syntax error. Though maybe the format is really forgiving, I can't tell. What happens if you forget the :END: bit, for instance?

#Note Taking #Task Management #Project Management 78 social mentions

3

Zoho Notebook

#Note Taking #Task Management #Notes

4

Turtl

I would like to build a better self-hosted tagging/viewing program for my huge cache of notes - something like Google Keep without being, well, Google. Turtl comes closest to my needs, but the lack of import/export at this point is a problem. I do not wish to be tied to a particular format or storage space.

#Task Management #Note Taking #Team Collaboration 27 social mentions

5

Microsoft Office Lens

#Note Taking #Notes #Productivity

6

Dynalist

#Note Taking #Project Management #Task Management 24 social mentions

7

wikidPad

#Note Taking #Todos #Task Management 17 social mentions

8

Jrnl.sh

#Personal Notes #Terminal Tools #Note Taking 16 social mentions

9

Boostnote

#Note Taking #Todos #Notes 6 social mentions

10

Zim Wiki

One problem is that some notes tend to become spread out and somewhat chaotic, especially when having to multitask under time pressure. Many notes taken have little if any value after some weeks or months so I don't pay much attention to strict discipline there. Zim is essentially a somewhat messy lab journal intended for myself.

#WiKi #Note Taking #Task Management 115 social mentions

11

Typora

#Markdown Editor #Text Editors #Markdown Viewer 84 social mentions

12

Moo.do

#Task Management #Project Management #Todos 5 social mentions

13

DokuWiki

#WiKi #Knowledge Base #Content Collaboration

14

Standard Notes

Indeed, one of the most important points is the Q&A in the FAQ: "Has Standard Notes completed a third-party security audit?" (Spoiler: yes, it did).

#Security & Privacy #Notes #Personal Notes 128 social mentions

15

Workflowy

After trying Evernote, Workflowy, Notion, wikis, org-mode, and essentially everything else I could find, I gave up and tried building my own system for notes. Plain timestamped markdown files linked together. Edited with vim and a few bash scripts, rendered with a custom deployment of Gollum. All in a git repo.

#Task Management #Note Taking #Project Management 2 social mentions

16

Notational Velocity

Good to see the best features of Notational Velocity being carried forward. I like the sound of iCloud syncing, too.

#Note Taking #Personal Notes #Productivity 12 social mentions

17

Notion

I personally seem to gravitate towards OneNote for pure note taking. I personally like Notion.so more for notes that refer to tasks, using Notionas more of a task management and organization app vs pure note taking.

#Productivity #Work Collaboration #Note Taking 438 social mentions

18

NotePlan

#Note Taking #Productivity #Todos 29 social mentions

19

Mac Notes

#Note Taking #Notes #Personal Notes

20

Scrivener

#Writing #Writing Tools #Text Editors

21

LifePIM

#Note Taking #Productivity #Personal Notes

22

Quiver

For anything more technical I use Quiver which supports MarkDown, code with pretty printing, LaTex and diagram markup, but it doesn't have an iPad editor (just reader).

#Collaboration #Content Collaboration #Content Management System

23

Vimwiki

#Perosnal Wiki #Note Taking #Personal Productivity 17 social mentions

24

Org mode

Before going full Org Mode, I used MS OneNote, and liked it very much. My notes from that period has tons of images and annotated screenshots dumped into them. I miss that in my Emacs workflow nowadays. My dream software would be pieces of Org Mode on a OneNote-like canvas, with support for easily pasting images and drawing on them (especially using a graphics tablet, or at least a touchscreen). And of course with plaintext format (though the attachments could go into directories, automatically managed by the notetaking software).

#Task Management #Project Management #Note Taking 174 social mentions

25

SuperMemo

#Learning Tools #Note Taking #Spaced Repetition

26

Taskade

#Task Management #Project Management #Todos 104 social mentions

27

Slab

#Work Collaboration #Note Taking #Productivity 16 social mentions

28

MindNode

#Digital Whiteboard #Brainstorming And Ideation #Idea Management 3 social mentions

29

Things

#Project Management #Task Management #Todos 54 social mentions

30

Google Keep

I would like to build a better self-hosted tagging/viewing program for my huge cache of notes - something like Google Keep without being, well, Google. Turtl comes closest to my needs, but the lack of import/export at this point is a problem. I do not wish to be tied to a particular format or storage space.

#Note Taking #Personal Notes #Notes

31

Trello

Although not ideal, I ended up with OneNote. Also for temporary notes, I use Trello (easily accessible from my mobile), but the notes don't live there for more than a week.

#Project Management #Task Management #Productivity 231 social mentions

32

Checkvist

#Project Management #Task Management #Todos 17 social mentions