Notesnook

I really like this app. Secure app (2FA possible to active) Possible to use in Android and Windows!!

Free version must be enought for my use for the moment !

As someone who's been deep in the privacy and productivity software rabbit hole for years, I've tried everything from Obsidian to Standard Notes to Joplin. Notesnook has carved out a solid spot in my daily rotation, and that's saying something given how picky I've become.

What sets it apart for me is the balance it strikes - most privacy-focused apps either look like they were designed in 2005 or have a learning curve steeper than Mount Everest. Notesnook actually feels modern without sacrificing the security fundamentals. The customization options are impressive; I've got mine configured with a custom theme that matches my other productivity tools, which sounds trivial but makes a huge difference when you're living in these apps all day.

The E2EE implementation is solid - I've dug through their open-source code (as I do with any tool that handles my sensitive data) and it checks out. It's refreshing not having to make the usual privacy tradeoffs that come with slick-looking apps.

That said, I'm not blind to the founder's public behavior. As someone who follows the privacy software space closely, the constant competitor-bashing on social media gets old fast. It's unprofessional and honestly makes me question their long-term judgment, even if the product itself is solid.

For fellow privacy/power users: Notesnook won't replace your entire stack, but it's earned its place as my go-to for quick, encrypted captures and longer-form writing where I need zero friction. It's not trying to be another Obsidian or Notion clone - it's doing its own thing, and doing it well. If you're tired of compromising between aesthetics and security like I was, it's worth the evaluation.

Overall a solid user experience which would suit people who prefer a more simple, clean notes app quite well, but in a broader context is pretty mediocre.

Firstly of course Notesnook is open source, privacy-respecting, and available on a range of platforms including webpage and is very consistent across Linux, web, and Android. All good there.

Now onto the meat of it; it has a decent interface with plenty of themes. They look a little samey but no worries because you also have the ability to upload your own (which I have not tried). It offers some customisation options when it comes to the actual notes such as text colours, highlighting, checklists and bulletpoints, quotes, tables, and math formulae, code blocks, and even 'callouts' which are collapsable boxes in different standard colours with headings like 'ERROR' and 'EXAMPLE' which I have not seen done like this elsewhere. For some it may too constricting but the vast majority of users would be perfectly happy with the range, with the huge added bonus of not having any other more complex stuff cluttering their page. Unfortunately while it has built-in spellcheck, only some languages are available and there is no way to add any new ones. There is a custom dictionary function but words can only be added in-note when you get the right-click menu and not directly from settings.

What makes it suitable only for some and not most in my opinion, though, is two major things.

The first one is the way notes and notebooks work. Notebooks are essentially just a way to sort notes, because they cannot be shared ('published') the way notes can be as I had first assumed. Only one note can be shared and if it links to another note that is not also shared, the second note is just not accessible. If you use several notes + a directory note like me, this means sharing several, even a dozen different notes, when really you would rather give out one link to the whole notebook.

As far as I can tell publishing a note is read-only regardless of subscription model. I understand it's a personal note-taking app but if you do find yourself in a position where you need to collaborate, you'd have to export it and move to another service or keep on importing and exporting updated versions.

As an aside, there is also currently no way to custom-order your notes unless you number them and order them by name (hence the directory note).

The other is the fact that the only export type available to free-tier users is plaintext. PDF and markup formats are paid-exclusives. Not great at all. I think restricting 'publishing' (and making notebooks actually useful so that it's explicitly different from exporting) would have been a far better decision. Not being the type of person who wants services to be essentially clones of other services, even I have to ask why they didn't do what notion did with workspaces (or whatever they are called).

There are a couple of other things that are paylocked, for example image/attachment insertions but embeds are available to all, and obviously files of unlimited size take up a lot of server resources so it's pretty fair. Real-time syncing is also paid for but the free syncing is not far behind.

In it's current state it is not definitely not worth the money. If it were improved I think the educator plan (9.99USD/year) is very reasonable. The standard ~55USD/year I personally feel steep but in any case it's still much cheaper than notion (bar their educator's rate being free) and they have their share of users.

I hope to see improvements in particular to do with sharing and notebooks. Also the monthly/yearly rates are currently in euros while educator rate is in USD (on the linux app as of today's version, at least) for some reason. I really think Notesnook could be some very good software but for now I'm sticking with LibreOffice.

For a Considerable Time Now, I have been using BOTH ••UpNote ALONGSIDE Of ••Notesnook — BOTH of Them are Excellent, and I have been finding it SOO Difficult to Determine:: Which ONE of them should be my MAIN Notes Program?!!

it's a really good app, the only con is that free version is too limited, and it's subscription based not a one time purchase