This really pisses me off. I have so much shit in OneNote and use it regularly.
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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Well shit. Time to rip my own files because their migration stuff is going to be all Microsoft proprietary.
I like Joplin, it could work for me but about 6 months ago I had to quit. My use case is against my s3 instance (not amazon) with 3 devices syncing. It became corrupt everytime.
Has this improved?
| Feature | Notion | Joplin | Obsidian | Evernote | Zoho Notebook | GoodNotes | Zim Wiki | Standard Notes | MyInfo | YouTrack | Logseq |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud Sync | Yes | Yes | Optional (via plugins or sync service) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Manual | Yes | Manual | Yes / Self-hosted | Optional (self-sync) |
| Offline Support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (Web cache) | Yes |
| Handwriting Support | No | Limited | No | Yes | Yes | Excellent | No | No | No | No | No |
| Encryption | No | Yes (E2EE) | No (unless encrypted drive) | Partial | No | No | No | Yes (E2EE) | No | Depends on hosting | Partial (local) |
| Hierarchy Support | Yes | Yes | Yes (Folders + Backlinks) | Yes | Partial | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes (Wiki, Issues, Projects) | Yes (Outline + Backlinks) |
| Free Version | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited | No | Yes (up to 10 users) | Yes |
| Platform Support | Win, macOS, iOS, Android, Web | Win, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Win, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android | Win, macOS, iOS, Android, Web | Win, macOS, iOS, Android, Web | iOS, iPadOS, macOS | Win, Linux | Win, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Web | Windows | Web, Win, macOS, Linux | Win, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android |
E: I noticed a couple mistakes. Lemme know if you spot others and I can edit (at time of this writing anyways)
I personally use Obsidian, but I know that other have suggested logseq. Might be useful to have in your table. Also, Obsidian does have an Android app.
Thanks - good notes
This is unreadable on mobile in portrait mode
On Boost, the columns got narrowed to each three characters wide, just to fit all columns on screen width-wise
Perfectly readable with the Voyager App.
Thunder compresses it
thunder and wefwef/voyager are the lemy apps i use on my phone
I suggest You track, which has a Wiki component. It had extensions like Draw.IO as well for diagramming which is basically a necessity for me.
Its self hostable or a free cloud version.
Great note - thanks for the contribution.
Excluding Google Keep?
The only list any of their services should be included in is the list of things to avoid.
i don't understand your comment
Does this explanation by ChatGPT make sense to you?
This comment seems to express a strongly negative opinion about Google. The writer is suggesting that Google's services should not be included in any positive or useful lists. Instead, they believe that Google and its services should be on a "list of things to avoid," implying that using Google is something people should avoid for some reason – likely due to concerns about privacy, data collection, or general distrust of the company.
now i get it!
I'm very interested in OneNote alternatives. I've been using OneNote for longer than I've disliked Microsoft... and I still think it's a good app. Pretty much the only thing I don't like about OneNote is the increasingly close integration with Windows accounts. I'd rather my notes were not scanned and uploaded and processed by a US mega-corp...
Anyway, people keep suggesting stuff like Joplin. But that isn't even vaguely close to OneNote in terms of stylus and inking. For me, inking is the main core feature. And so in terms of alternatives, xournal++ is a closer fit. (xournal++ has essentially no organisational structure for notes; but it is really great for inking.)
What I'd really like is basically the organisational structure of Joplin (or whatever other alternative) + the inking power of xournal++. And ideally being able to import my vast amounts of handwritten OneNote work! -- But that last bit is probably too much to ask.
I've been using Any.type for a bit over a year, and am very happy with it, but I don't believe it has hand writing support.
There is a free tier that includes 1gb synced storage (optional).
It's open source. Somewhat similar to Obsidian, but no plugin support that I'm aware of.
I switched from OneNote a couple of years ago.
For hand writing i suggest using Rnote and for normal keyboard writing I suggest Joplin. Keep it synced using cloud provider or using Syncthing for free.
About organizational structure in Rnote I unfortunatelly recommend just saving files in a structure of folders. Rnote is the most polished alternative to hand-writing capabilities of OneNote I've found :c
About importing notes. I don't think that's possible but you can surely export them all to PDF from OneNote. I did that when I migrated.
Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out Rnote sometime soon.
(As I said, I do like the writing & drawing features of xournal++; and so I've been doing a bit of basic file / folder organising with that already; but it certainly isn't as easily browseable as OneNote.)
Everyong recommending Obsidian in the comments, where are Logseq users?
I stopped using it since they keep not updating the electron version they are using. It took them forever to update after electron 28 went EOL and they updated to a version that would go EOL about a week later, which they have been on ever since..
Edit: They just bumped to a supported version, but only in master. It's still unknown when a release with a supported electron version is coming.
Obsidian ftw
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