Notesnook is the open source note taking software I’ve been looking for

I spend most of my time each day jotting down information, ideas and thoughts. That’s why I’m picky programs to record I use it on my devices.

For a long time, my note-taking system used two programs: Simplenote for quick notes and Obsidian for structured notes. But a while ago, I started looking for a replacement for Simplenote, because the simplicity that I once found to be its greatest strength started to become limited in daily use.

I’ve tested several popular note-taking apps and found Notesnook to be the best for my needs. I’ve since switched to Notesnook as my primary note-taking software, and I wish I’d done it sooner.

What is Notesnook?

Notesnook is a relatively new software in the field of notes. This is what sets it apart from many popular recording programs end-to-end encryption and a generous free plan.

End-to-end encryption allows Notesnook to offer a private note-taking experience. It ensures that your notes remain private whether they are on your device or on Notesnook’s servers. As for the free plan, it’s the most feature-rich free plan I’ve used in a notepad in a while, including all the basic features you’d normally use. The free plan syncs your notes across all your devices, eliminating the need for manual solutions like Obsidian. What’s also nice is that unlike apps like Notion, Notesnook has a fully functional offline mode, so you can view, edit, search, and organize your notes even when you’re not connected to the internet.

Notesnook is available on all major mobile and desktop platforms. You also get a free web clipper for Firefox and Chromium-based web browsers, which lets you quickly save web pages and articles you find interesting on the web to Notesnook. The best part is that it supports text selection, so you can select the exact paragraphs you want to keep on the web page.

Notesnook strongly emphasizes privacy. Unlike most note-taking apps, it keeps your notes encrypted at all times, meaning they’re encrypted not only when they’re on your device, but also on the Notesnook servers and in transit, which Simplenote doesn’t. The company says this ensures that no one, including its team, can read your notes. This feature alone is Notesnook’s biggest draw for me. As I prefer to record frequently needed personal and work-related information in notes for easy access, it is a great comfort to know that my notes cannot be viewed by anyone.

Then there’s support for rich media add-ons. Unlike Simplenote, which is built around text, Notesnook lets you insert images and attach files (PDFs, scanned receipts, audio clips, etc.) directly to your notes. I find it really useful for researching, planning appointments, keeping records of things like car services, or jotting down instructions.

Note organization also feels better in Notesnook. The only way to group similar notes in Simplenote is to give them the same tag name. With Notesnook, you get notebooks with folders where you can put similar notes together so they’re easier to find later. I also like that each notebook can have multiple sub-notebooks as it allows me to create hierarchical notes within my notebooks.

Another area where Notesnook excels over Simplenote is text formatting. While Simplenote supports Markdown, which is great for formatting text on the go, it lacks basic text formatting options. After switching to Notesnook, I realized what a huge pain point this was. Unlike Simplenote, Notesnook offers all the basic text style options like bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, underline, superscript, code, and Math, as well as multiple options for headings and lists, and more. offers. I also find the spreadsheets feature very useful because it makes comparisons easier, helps me better track the status of my projects, and makes the information more comprehensive. All these text formatting options are well-designed in Notesnook’s mobile and desktop editor interface.

It’s only been a few weeks since I switched to Notesnook, but I’ve already lost a few things about Simplenote. First, there is speed. With its lightweight interface and minimalist approach to note-taking, Simplenote is fast and very easy to use. The app launches quickly, and since all notes are displayed in a vertical list, you can tap or click on a note to access and start working on it.

Another thing I miss in Notesnook is full support for Markdown-based notes. Unlike Simplenote, Notesnook doesn’t let you write notes in raw Markdown. Instead, when you type Markdown tags (called shortcuts in Notesnook), they are converted to rich text. It’s worth noting that Markdown shortcuts aren’t available on the free plan, so you’ll need to upgrade to the paid Notesnook plan to use them. Of all the Simplenote features, raw Markdown support is the one I miss the most after switching to Notesnook.

Another watered-down feature in Notesnook is cross-platform note history synchronization. Although Notesnook lets you view a note’s revision history since it was created, it’s local, meaning the app doesn’t sync changes across all your devices. As a result, if you make changes to a note on your phone, you won’t be able to see or restore them in the Notesnook desktop app. Not so with Simplenote, which syncs research history across devices.

Finally, I miss Simplenote’s collaboration feature. I use it for planning a vacation, keeping a shopping list, etc. I find it quite useful to cooperate in work. All you need to do is add the email address of the person you want to collaborate with. The note then appears in their note list and they can go in to view and make changes. All changes are visible to the other person in real time. Collaboration is one of the most requested features in the Notesnook community.

Although I miss some aspects of Simplenote after switching to Notesnook, the advantages Notesnook offers make it more applicable for my note-taking needs than Simplenote. So I replaced Simplenote with it. In fact, I also started using it for permanent notes and copied some notes from Obsidian.

That said, I’m not replacing Obsidian with Notesnook anytime soon; I think Obsidian is still one of the best software for managing databases, wikis and knowledge bases thanks to its plugin support. I also can’t live without the Obsidian knowledge graph, which helps me visualize my vault and identify related and orphaned records. Automation workflows, Markdown support, and no vendor lock-in are other aspects of Obsidian that prevent me from completely switching to Notesnook – at least for now.