How we make this list: we compare pricing pages, product documentation and public user reviews. Ratings come from G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, with the date we checked them.
Key takeaways
- Joplin is the mature default: free Markdown notes with end to end encryption, flexible sync, and optional Joplin Cloud from 2.99 euros a month.
- Logseq is the outliner and journal pick, free with local files, with encrypted sync at $5 a month billed annually.
- Standard Notes and Notesnook lead on privacy polish, with Pro tiers at $9.99 and $4.99 a month respectively.
- Anytype and AppFlowy are the Notion shaped answers, local first and open source, for notes that live beside tasks and databases.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|
 Joplin | The mature all round notebook | Free | Yes |
 Logseq | Outlining, journals and linked thinking | Free | Yes |
 Standard Notes | Maximum privacy, minimal fuss | Free | Yes |
 Notesnook | Encrypted notes with modern polish | Free | Yes |
 Anytype | Local first Notion style workspaces | Free | Yes |
 AppFlowy | Open source docs, wikis and projects | Free | Yes |
 AFFiNE | Documents and whiteboards together | Free | Yes |
 Trilium | Self hosted personal knowledge trees | Free | Yes |
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The best open source note-taking apps in 2026
#1Joplin
Best for: The mature all round notebook4.8/5 on
G2 (5 reviews, checked Oct 2026)
Visit joplinapp.org
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Joplin is the safe recommendation in this category, the app a decade of development and a huge community produce. Notes are Markdown, encryption is end to end, and the sync menu is the point: pay for Joplin Cloud, point it at storage you already have, or run the server yourself and pay nothing. That flexibility is why privacy guides keep naming it first.
Its costs are aesthetic and administrative. You will choose a sync method, occasionally resolve a conflict, and look at an interface designed by engineers. In exchange you get the closest thing open source has to a finished Evernote replacement, at a software price of zero.
What we like- A complete notebook: Markdown notes, to dos, a web clipper and a large plugin ecosystem, end to end encryption, with sync through your choice of Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive or your own server, runs on every platform including Linux, which commercial rivals skip, imports from Evernote and OneNote for escapees
Watch out for- The interface is functional rather than beautiful, and mobile polish trails Notesnook, sync setup is a decision you must make, not a default, Joplin Cloud is priced in euros, from 2.99 a month, which US users should note at checkout
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Logseq is for thinkers in bullets. Start each day on the journal page, indent your world under it, link names and projects as you type, and the graph assembles a second brain from the habit. Researchers, students and journal keepers rate it the most natural capture tool here.
Prose writers should test carefully. Drafting an essay inside nested blocks suits some minds and torments others, and Logseq's ongoing engine rewrite means the occasional rough edge in 2026. The files remain plain text throughout, which is the insurance policy: even a bad update cannot strand your notes.
What we like- A block based outliner built around daily journals, with bidirectional links and a graph of your thinking, local first: notes are plain Markdown or Org files on your own disk, queries turn scattered notes into live lists and dashboards, free and open source under AGPL, with encrypted sync at $5 a month billed annually for those who want it done for them
Watch out for- The outliner model divides people: writers of long prose often fight it, a database backed rewrite has been in progress, so the project is mid transition, mobile apps are companions rather than equals to the desktop
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Standard Notes is the vault with a text box. Everything is encrypted before it leaves your device, the company, Proton since 2024, sells privacy as its entire identity, and the app refuses almost every feature that would complicate that promise. For sensitive journals, records and thoughts, that refusal is the recommendation.
Pay attention to the tier line. Free Standard Notes is a plain text diary; the spreadsheets, rich text and file features that make it a full notebook sit on Pro at $9.99 a month. Privacy maximalists pay it gladly. Everyone else should compare Notesnook's cheaper Pro before deciding how much purity costs.
What we like- Zero knowledge end to end encryption as the founding design, audited and taken seriously by the privacy community, now owned by Proton, whose business is privacy rather than advertising, deliberately simple: fast, clean notes without a feature circus, long termist design, with plain text export and offline access
Watch out for- The free tier is genuinely basic, with rich editors and features behind Pro at $9.99 a month, minimalism is a wall as well as a virtue: no databases, no canvas, no project layer, that Pro price is the highest here for a notes app
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Notesnook is what happens when the privacy brief gets a design budget. It matches the encryption story of Standard Notes, then adds the interface, mobile experience and free tier generosity that make non technical users stay. For most people escaping Evernote or Notion into private notes, 2026 comparisons start the recommendation here.
Its Pro tier at $4.99 a month is also the friendliest paid upgrade in the encrypted group. The remaining cautions are youth and scale: fewer years, fewer plugins, fewer battle stories. The code is open and the export is real, so even those risks are survivable ones.
What we like- End to end encrypted notes with the polish of a commercial app, including encrypted vaults for the most sensitive items, the strongest free tier in the encrypted field by 2026 comparisons, Pro at $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, undercutting Standard Notes, self hosting has been available since its v3 release, a capable web clipper
Watch out for- A younger project than Joplin, with a smaller plugin and community ecosystem, some advanced organisation features sit behind Pro, the self hosted server stack is real infrastructure to run
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Anytype answers the commonest open source question: what replaces Notion without handing my workspace to another landlord. Its answer keeps the objects and databases, moves the data onto your devices, and syncs peer to peer under encryption. For personal knowledge systems and small team wikis, the model works today.
Approach it as a platform decision. Migrating a Notion life into objects and relations is a weekend of restructuring, and casual note takers will find the machinery heavy. Builders of personal systems, the people Notion charged and changed terms on once too often, will find the effort is the point.
What we like- A Notion shaped workspace, pages, objects, sets and relations, that runs local first with peer to peer sync and no central server holding your data, end to end encrypted, with a graph view of connected objects, free for personal use, with paid memberships funding development, works fully offline, syncing when devices meet
Watch out for- The object based model takes learning: this is a system to adopt, not a notepad to open, membership and remote storage tiers have been repriced during its long beta, so confirm current terms, smaller template and integration world than Notion itself
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
AppFlowy is the team shaped sibling in this family. Where Anytype centres the individual's knowledge system, AppFlowy aims at the shared workspace: project docs, a company wiki, task boards, all on infrastructure you can host yourself. Organisations with data residency rules start here.
Judge it as a young platform with an old soul's priorities. The essentials, documents, databases, boards, work and are improving quickly; the long tail of Notion polish is still arriving. A team that can tolerate that curve gains something no closed vendor offers: a wiki that cannot be repriced against them.
What we like- An open source workspace in the Notion mould: documents, grids, boards and calendars, self hostable, so a team's wiki can live on its own infrastructure, desktop class apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, with mobile following, AI features available without surrendering the workspace to a closed platform, free to self host, with cloud plans for teams that prefer a vendor
Watch out for- Younger and rougher than the commercial original it mirrors, mobile experience trails the desktop, the project's pace means features arrive in an order set by its community, not your roadmap
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
AFFiNE is the experiment worth watching. Every other entry separates writing from sketching; AFFiNE treats a page and a whiteboard as two views of the same thought, and for planners, teachers and product thinkers that fusion is immediately useful. Its local first, open source base keeps the experiment safe to try.
Its youth cuts both ways. Features move quickly, in both directions, and a cautious user will keep exports current while the project settles its shape. As a second brain for visual thinkers it has no open source rival; as a ten year archive, Joplin's dullness remains a virtue.
What we like- Documents and an infinite whiteboard in one workspace, so notes become diagrams without changing apps, local first with open source code, and real time collaboration in its hosted mode, a genuinely fresh take on the notebook rather than a clone of anyone, free during its development phase for core use, by the project's own positioning
Watch out for- The newest name here, with the smallest track record, the blend of doc and canvas can feel unfocused to plain note takers, monetisation is still settling, so future tier lines are hard to predict
Starting priceFree
Free planYes
Trilium is the hobbyist's fortress. Run it on a home server or a small VPS and you own a deep, fast, encrypted notebook that answers to nobody, with the tree structure and scripting that technical users build real systems on. Long term self hosters in 2026 accounts frequently name it the app that finally stuck.
Its terms are the terms of all self hosting: no support line, no mobile polish, backups on you. For the audience that finds those terms attractive rather than alarming, Trilium is arguably the most capable notebook on this page, and the only one whose running cost is a server you probably already own.
What we like- A powerful hierarchical notebook designed to be self hosted on your own server, with encryption for protected notes, rich features for technical knowledge: code notes with syntax highlighting, relations, scripting and a strong search, no account, no subscription and no cloud unless you build one, a devoted user base that has run it for years for entire knowledge bases
Watch out for- Effectively desktop and server first, with mobile as a browser afterthought, the project home is its repository, reflecting a developer led tool rather than a consumer product, setup and maintenance are entirely yours
How we chose
We required genuine open source licences, not source available marketing: Obsidian and several other fine apps were excluded on that rule alone. Within the rule we covered the real shapes of note taking: notebook, outliner, encrypted vault, workspace and knowledge tree. Website fields point to project homes by design, including a repository for Trilium. Prices are the optional sync and Pro tiers reported in 2026 comparisons; every app here is free at its core. We did not claim hands-on testing.
The real cost of free notes
Open source notes are free the way a puppy is free. The app costs nothing; the sync, storage and maintenance are yours to arrange. Joplin on your own Nextcloud, Trilium on a VPS, Logseq files in a git repository: each is cheap in money and real in attention. The hosted tiers, Joplin Cloud, Logseq Sync and the Pro plans, exist because many people happily pay $3 to $10 a month to hand that attention back.
Choose your sync like you choose the app. Files on disk, Logseq and Joplin's Markdown, survive every company and most accidents, and plain text is the only format guaranteed readable in thirty years. Database backed workspaces organise better and export adequately, which is a reasonable trade when the export button is tested monthly rather than trusted blindly.
Whatever you pick, run the exit drill once: export everything, open the export in another app, and confirm your notes survived the journey. An open source app you have never left is a promise. An export you have verified is a fact, and notes are worth facts.
Frequently asked questions
Is Obsidian open source?
No. Obsidian is free for personal use and stores notes as local Markdown, but its code is proprietary, source available at most. It is excluded from this list on that rule, not on quality, and Joplin or Logseq are the usual open source landings for its users.
What is the best open source note app overall?
Joplin, for maturity, platforms, encryption and sync choice. Logseq beats it for journal driven outlining, and Notesnook beats it for polish, but Joplin is the recommendation that fits the most people with the fewest caveats.
Are these apps really free?
The apps are free and open source. Money enters only if you buy convenience: official sync such as Joplin Cloud from 2.99 euros a month or Logseq Sync at $5 a month billed annually, or Pro tiers like Notesnook at $4.99 a month. Self hosting makes even sync free, at the cost of your own administration.
Which app is best for privacy?
Standard Notes for purity, with zero knowledge encryption and Proton's ownership, and Notesnook for nearly the same protection with a friendlier free tier and price. Joplin with end to end encryption and your own server is the self hoster's equal answer.
Can I self host all of these?
Most: Joplin, Notesnook, AppFlowy, AFFiNE and Trilium all support self hosting, and Logseq and Anytype are local first designs that need no server at all. Standard Notes focuses on its hosted service with encryption doing the protective work.
Sources we checked (0)
Is your product missing or out of date?
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Shihab Mia · Founder, Rankite
Shihab has 5+ years in B2B and SaaS SEO. He writes Rankite's software buying guides from pricing pages, documentation and public user reviews. More about Shihab.