Obsidian
Notion
Logseq
Joplin
Roam Research
Evernote
Bear
Standard Notes
PrivacyNotes
Standard Notes
Apple Notes
Simplenote
Google Keep
Day One
Notion
Journey
PrivacyNotes is a zero-knowledge encrypted workspace that brings your notes, tasks, journals, files, and passwords into one app, so you stop juggling four separate subscriptions.
Everything is encrypted on your device with XChaCha20-Poly1305 before it ever syncs. Your keys are derived from a recovery phrase that never touches our servers, so we cannot read your content, your filenames, or anything else. This is real zero-knowledge, not a marketing label.
Five pillars, one encrypted app:
Built for privacy, not surveillance:
Pricing that respects you:
Works on web, macOS, and soon iOS, Android, Windows and Linux with a responsive mobile layout. Import from Apple Notes, Standard Notes, Google Keep, Obsidian, and markdown in a few clicks.
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PrivacyNotes's answer:
Honestly? We have no idea, and that is the entire point. Signup is anonymous (a recovery phrase or Google, no email or personal details), the app ships zero analytics and zero trackers, and zero-knowledge encryption means we cannot see who you are or what you store. We could not name a single customer if we tried. A privacy product that tracked its users closely enough to brag about them would be missing the plot.
PrivacyNotes's answer:
PrivacyNotes is the only zero-knowledge encrypted workspace that keeps notes, tasks, journals, files, and a password vault behind one set of on-device keys. Most privacy apps do one of those well and rent it to you monthly. We do all five, encrypt everything with XChaCha20-Poly1305 before it leaves your device, and charge once instead of forever. The encryption core is open core, published so the claims can be verified rather than trusted.
PrivacyNotes's answer:
Three reasons:
PrivacyNotes's answer:
Privacy-conscious individuals and independent professionals who handle information they would not want a vendor reading: lawyers, journalists, healthcare and mental-health practitioners, developers, security specialists, researchers, and founders. It also fits anyone who simply wants one private home for their notes, tasks, journaling, and wellness tracking instead of spreading them across surveillance-funded apps.
PrivacyNotes's answer:
React, TypeScript, Vite and Tailwind CSS.
PrivacyNotes's answer:
PrivacyNotes started from a simple frustration: staying organized meant scattering your life across half a dozen apps, most of which could read everything you typed and billed you monthly for the privilege. We wanted one place for notes, tasks, journals, files, and passwords, encrypted so thoroughly that the people running the servers could not read a word of it, and paid for once rather than forever. So we built the encryption first, made the keys live only on your device, and published the crypto as open core so the promise could be checked, not just believed. Everything else grew from one rule: your data is yours, and no one else's to mine.
Perhaps you know someone who swears by Obsidian, it may seem like a cult of overly devoted people for how passionate they are, but it's not without reason
I've been using Obsidian for over 3 years, at a point in my life when I felt I had to handle too much information and I felt like grasping water not being able to remember everything I wanted, language learning, programming, accounting, university, daily tasks. A friend recommended it to me next to Notion (of which he is a passionate cultist priest) and I reluctantly picked it and fell in love almost immediately.
Obsidian seems very simple, like a notepad with folder interface, similar to Sublime Text, but the ability to link files together in a Wiki style allows you to organize ideas in any way you want, one file may lead to a dozen or more ideas that are related
If you want to do something specific, Obsidian has a plethora of community created plugins that expand the functionality, in my case, I use obsidian to organize my classes both as a teacher and as a student, using local databases, calendars, dictionaries, slides, vector graphic drawings, excel-like tables, Anki connection, podcasts, and more
I've been using Obsidian for more than a year. It's been great. I think it offer a great balance of control, flexibility and extensibility. What is more, you own your own data, that's been a must-have feature for me. I just can't imagine putting all my knowledge into something that I don't have control over.
I think two of the most popular alternatives that people consider are Logseq and Roam Research. Although Logseq is a bit different, it's considered compatible with Obsidian. Supposedly, you can use them with a shared database (files. Both use simple text files for storage). I tried that once, a few months ago. It worked, yet it messed up a bit my Obsidian files ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
This app checks every box for me. Clean interface, no learning curve, local-first encryption, and secure sync across all of my devices.
The biggest surprise is how many apps it replaced. Instead of juggling separate apps for notes, habits, mood, activities, and important dates, everything lives in one place now. It's made staying organized a lot simpler.
Paying once and knowing I won't lose access to my workflow because I canceled yet another subscription is incredibly refreshing. That peace of mind is worth a lot to me.
The best thing about this: No subscription model, it's a one-time fee for a lifetime license. But you can start for free with the generous freemium model. I only needed to upgrade to pro because I wanted to use the app on my phone, laptop and desktop. Highly recommended! Btw, it's a perfect markdown editor as well, not sure why they don't emphasize this more.
Based on our record, Obsidian seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 1523 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.
Inline preview, usually called WYSIWYG. Obsidian's Live Preview mode hides the syntax except where the cursor is. Obsidian is a far better personal knowledge base than anything else on this page, with backlinks, a graph and years of plugins, and if that is what you need the question of what its editor is called does not matter much. - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
The stack is all open source: Obsidian, GBrain, Horizon, PGLite, and a couple of small Python scripts for the state machine and quality gates. None of the interesting parts are proprietary — the interesting part is the discipline. - Source: dev.to / 21 days ago
Obsidian is a note-taking app that stores everything as Plain markdown files. It lets you organize and structure your notes in a Flexible way, and because the files are plain text on disk, anything that can Read a directory can read your notes, including an AI agent. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
Install Obsidian: Download the client from obsidian.md and create a local Vault — just a local folder. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/) Honestly its not huge and most are probably obvious, but those are what I immediately install on my machines. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.
Standard Notes - A safe place for your notes, thoughts, and life's work
Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.
Apple Notes - Apple Notes functions as a service for making short text notes.
Joplin - Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.
Simplenote - The simplest way to keep notes. Light, clean, and free. Simplenote is now available for iOS, Android, Mac, and the web.
