awesome-note-taking

What is this? A hand-picked directory of 100+ note-taking apps, PKM tools, and knowledge management software — from simple markdown editors to full knowledge graphs. Whether you're a developer, student, writer, or researcher, you'll find the right tool here.

Know a great tool that's missing? Open a PR — contributions are very welcome!

Legend

Icon	Meaning
📖	Notes stored in plain text (Markdown, org-mode, wiki, etc.)
📕	Notes stored in a database or proprietary format
🤖	Android support or app (see also Termux for CLI tools)
🍎	iOS support or app
👍	Recommended — in active use for years by a PR author
🔁	Built-in multi-device sync (alternatively: Syncthing or any cloud provider)
🔒	End-to-end encryption support
⚠️	Archived / abandoned — kept for reference but no longer maintained

Contents

• Open Source
  • Native GUI
  • CLI
  • TUI
  • Editor Plugin
  • Electron
  • Tauri
  • Web UI
• Proprietary
• Quick Comparison
• Contributing

Open Source

Native GUI

• 📕🍎🤖🔁 AppFlowy - Open source alternative to Notion. Supports macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android. AGPL-3.0 Flutter/Dart
• 📕 Cherrytree - A hierarchical note-taking app featuring rich text and syntax highlighting. GPL-3.0 Qt/C++
• 📕🍎🔁 DailyVox - Free AI voice diary for iOS with on-device transcription, mood tracking, Digital Twin, and knowledge graph. 100% offline, optional iCloud sync. MIT Swift/SwiftUI
• 📖 Fluster - All-in-one note-taking solution for modern students and academics, powered by Rust with integrated AI. ? Rust/TypeScript
• 📖🍎🤖🔁 GitJournal - Open source markdown notes editor with integrated Git syncing. Supports iOS, Android, Linux, and macOS. AGPL-3.0 Flutter/Dart
• 📖 Leo - PIM, IDE, and outliner that accelerates the work flow of programmers, authors, and web designers. MIT Python
• 📖 QOwnNotes - Open source plain-text file markdown note-taking application with Nextcloud / ownCloud integration. GPL-2.0 Qt/C++
• 📖 Red Notebook - Open source desktop journal using plain-text files. GPL-2.0 Python/GTK
• 📕 Revu - Local-first spaced repetition note-taking app for macOS with FSRS scheduling, Anki import, and study guides. GPL-3.0 Swift/SwiftUI
• 🤖🔁⚠️ Tomboy - GNOME desktop note-taking application for Linux, Windows, and macOS. Original project abandoned; see tomboy-ng for the active successor. LGPL-2.1 C#/Mono
• 📕 treesheets - Free form data organizer using hierarchical spreadsheet.

CLI

• 📖 IWE - A markdown-based knowledge management tool with CLI and LSP server. Turns markdown files into a navigable graph with backlinks and link completion. Works with VS Code, Neovim, Zed, and Helix. Apache-2.0 Rust
• 📕 lifeos-cli - A terminal-native LifeOS for notes, linked tasks, schedules, events, and timelogs. Apache-2.0 Python
• 📖 nb - A command line and local web note-taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application. AGPL-3.0 Shell
• 📖 todo-txt - A simple and extensible shell script for managing your todo.txt file. GPL-3.0 Shell
• 📖 zk - A command-line tool helping you to maintain a plain text Zettelkasten or personal wiki. GPL-3.0 Go

TUI

• 📖 FuzPad - A minimalistic note management solution powered by fzf. GPL-3.0 Shell
• 📖 Toney - A fast, lightweight, terminal-based note-taking app for the modern developer. MIT Go

Editor Plugin

• 🤖 Emacs - An open source, cross-platform, extensible, and customizable text editor. GPL-3.0 C/Emacs Lisp
  • 📖 Deft - An Emacs mode for quickly browsing, filtering, and editing directories of plain text notes, inspired by Notational Velocity. BSD-3-Clause Emacs Lisp
  • 📖 howm - Note-taking tool on Emacs that can be combined with any format. GPL-2.0 Emacs Lisp
  • 📖 Hyperbole/Koutliner - Multi-level autonumbered hypertextual outliner for Emacs. GPL-3.0 Emacs Lisp
  • 📖⚠️ Org-brain - Concept mapping in Emacs using org-mode. Last commit 2023; appears unmaintained. MIT Emacs Lisp
  • 📖 Org-mode - Plain-text markup and major mode for keeping notes, authoring documents, computational notebooks, and literate programming. GPL-3.0 Emacs Lisp
  • 📖 Org-roam - Plain-text personal knowledge management system inspired by Roam Research. GPL-3.0 Emacs Lisp
• 📖 vim-wiki - A personal wiki for Vim — a number of linked text files with their own syntax highlighting. MIT Vim Script
• Visual Studio Code - Microsoft text editor.
  • 📖 Emanote - A structured view of your plain-text notes. Successor to Neuron. AGPL-3.0 Haskell
  • 📖 Foam - VSCode plugin for personal knowledge management inspired by Roam Research. MIT TypeScript/VSCode

Electron

• 📕🔁 AFFiNE - Next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting, and creating all together. Privacy first, open-source, customizable and ready to use. MIT Electron/TypeScript
• 📕🍎🤖🔒🔁 AnyType - Open source local-first app for tasks, notes, and more with E2EE and cross-platform sync. Source-available Electron/TypeScript
• 📖 Bangle.io - A free alternative to Notion that takes markdown notes saved right on your computer. AGPL-3.0 Web/TypeScript
• 📖 btw - Open source personal website builder. GPL-3.0 Electron/JavaScript
• 📖 Linked - Forget less by daily journaling, completely offline, secure, and free. Supports macOS, Windows, and Linux. GPL-3.0 Electron/TypeScript
• 📖🍎🤖🔁 Logseq - Local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base. AGPL-3.0 Electron/ClojureScript
• ⚠️ Notable - Simple note-taking app based on VS Code Editor. No longer open source as of v1.6. Proprietary Electron/TypeScript
• 📕🍎🤖🔁 SiYuan - A privacy-first, self-hosted, fully open source personal knowledge management software. AGPL-3.0 Electron/TypeScript+Go
• 📖🍎🤖🔒🔁 Standard Notes - A free, open-source, and completely encrypted notes app for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android. AGPL-3.0 Electron/TypeScript
• 📖 SwarmVault - Local-first RAG knowledge base compiler with persistent markdown wiki, knowledge graph, hybrid SQLite FTS and embeddings, contradiction detection, and built-in MCP server. MIT Node.js/TypeScript
• 📖 Tangent Notes - An open source, local-first markdown note taking application designed to let you write the way you think.

Tauri

• 📖🍎 Char - Open-source AI notepad for meetings with flexible AI stack and on-device storage. GPL-3.0 Tauri/Rust+TypeScript
• 📖 Inkwell - Portable Markdown editor with split view, live preview, themes, templates, focus mode, and diff viewer. Source-available Tauri/Rust
• 📖 Stik - Instant thought capture for macOS. Global hotkey summons a post-it note, type and close. Notes stored as plain markdown files. MIT Tauri/TypeScript+Rust
• 📕 Treedome - Open-source and local-first, encrypted note-taking application organized in tree-like structures. AGPL-3.0 Tauri/Rust

Web UI

• 📖⚠️ CodiMD - The free software version of HackMD. See HedgeDoc for the active community fork. AGPL-3.0 Web/JavaScript
• 📖 Docmost - Open-source collaborative wiki and documentation software. Notion/Confluence alternative with real-time collaboration. AGPL-3.0 Web/TypeScript
• 📖 Dokuwiki - A simple to use and highly versatile open source wiki software that doesn't require a database. GPL-2.0 Web/PHP
• 📖 Ephe - A Markdown paper for daily todo and thoughts. Privacy first, OSS, local-only. MIT Web/TypeScript
• 📖 Flatnotes - Self-hosted, database-less, plain-text markdown note-taking app. MIT Python/Vue
• 📖 Fossil - Source control software with built-in standalone wiki pages. BSD-2-Clause C
• 📖 HedgeDoc - Real-time collaborative markdown notes. Community successor to CodiMD. AGPL-3.0 Web/TypeScript
• 📕 Hypothes.is - Annotate anything online. BSD-2-Clause Web/Python
• 📖🍎🤖🔒🔁 Joplin - Open source note taking app that supports synchronization with E2EE. Available on Windows, Linux, macOS, iO