Note-taking apps

Note-taking apps hold quick thoughts, meeting notes, research and reference material in a form you can search and organise later. The apps below cover several styles: plain-text and Markdown notes, outliners with backlinks, hierarchical knowledge bases, sticky notes and handwritten notes.

Before moving your notes, check how each app stores them. Some keep every note as a file in a folder you choose, others use a database. Look at sync options (none, your own server, or the project's service), whether notes are encrypted, and how easily you can export everything if you switch later.