There are tons of Notes app available in the playstore and f-droid. I have use my fair share of them these are my best 5 recommendations. All of these are free to use and have to pay extra if you want specific features.
- All in one - Wenote - This is the most powerful note app I have used. This has memo, voice record, calendar, sync, color coding, various fonts, categories etc. Some of these features are behind a paywall. But It is a one time payment. It looks minimal and is light weight.
- All in one but foss - Joplin - This is an open-source project. Available on almost all platforms. If you want a powerful cross-platform note taking application then this is the best bet. This is Completely free but has an option of premium sync option. You can use free sync service to nextcloud and webdav.
- Security - Standard Notes - This is a note taking application that focuses on security. This is an open-source private notes app meaning your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. It has a minimal and clean UI. It has dedicated apps for most platforms and syncs your notes securely across all your devices, including your Android devices, Windows, iOS, Linux, and Web.
- Modern - Bundled Notes - This is the most modern looking Notes app on my list. It is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive. A powerful notes, lists, reminders and to-do app. Easily organise notes, lists, photos, files, and more. A google keep alternative.
- For casual use - Notally - A lightweight note taking application. A simple and elegant open source notes app. Notally is a minimalistic note taking app with a beautiful material design and powerful features. Dark mode, Completely free, Adjustable text size, Auto save and backup, No permissions required.
P.S: Obsidian is also a great Note taking tool.
And then you have people who use Obsidian
I wish it was open source. I used to use Obsidian until I started to replace everything with FOSS alternatives. And from all the proprietary software I used to use, Obsidian is the only one which I miss.
I've tried logseq, Joplin, rnote, zettler, silverbullet.md, and a long list of alternatives, but nothing comes close to Obsidian...
I migrated from obsidian to logseq and it's "alright".
I miss the clean md files from obsidian, but other than that, logseq is pretty powerful.
I also like notion, except its cloud based.
I hate that everything in logseq is a bullet point. I just can't understand why they do that. And it pollutes my markdown files too if I open them with other editor.
It sells itself as an "outliner". Which is bullet pointing everything. That's actually how I take notes.
I though about other ways to parse it, but I couldn't come up with anything.
It would be nice to have another mode for non full outliner documents, if you just want a markdown file, instead of an indexable list of blocks.
Logseq is block-based. Each bullet is a block. This is very powerful because it allows you to interlink concepts, ideas, at the level of the block vs page.
I don't see any utility in doing that. I want to take normal notes. It was super annoying.
You can link to other paragraphs/blocks in Obsidian.md as well? You can literally link to a sentence...
I did a little research and found a Redditor who was able to answer better than me:
EDIT: I was really curious about the major differences and what is enabled by Logseq's block-based architecture so I asked my network on Mastodon and got some great answers!
Some folks may not know this but Logseq has a built-in whiteboard feature too that's also FOSS. I use it all the time to mind-map new blogposts and newsletters.
In Logseq the starting page is always the journal page for the day. This allows you to build up content without worrying about where it should go. Once you have something you feel you can run with, then you can move it to its own page.
EDIT: more features enabled by Logseq's block-based (bullets) architecture over on Mastodon.
How's it for personal knowledge management and second brain kinda use?
I like the diary format, and how the links between notes work. And the filtering and querying features. But mostly, I just keep notes for the days, and use checklists to capture future tasks, and then filter by "tasks only".
I also write drafts for work documents, but didn't figure how to tag them, or use much of the linking functionality there.