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Note-taking apps great for roles of all types, remote work and increase productivity.
I am a heavy user of Microsoft OneNote and while it has been okay for capturing quick or meeting notes. I found myself wanting a little more from my note-taking app. Not only that, but I did some research and here are 5 I can recommend:
1. Notion
More than a note-taking app. You don’t have to open multiple tabs or switch applications more times than necessary. A single platform with multiple tools saves users precious time. It also has a free plan for individuals that includes unlimited pages and blocks with up to five guests.
Notion works across different devices. It has a web app, a Mac and Windows desktop app, and native mobile apps for iOS and Android devices. Users have more options to access work anywhere, including off-site and while on the go. Sharing of information is also simple.
A clutter-free interface with built-in customization enables individuals and teams a way to organize work, tasks, and projects. A Notion project management review might not put the software in the category of other PM tools, but its features, especially its wiki tool, give teams and organizations the flexibility to use Notion for more general and less complex projects.
Pros:
- Free for personal use
- Available across all platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux)
- Powerful tools made with creators in mind. Visually stunning layouts made easy.
- Unifies workspace and task management.
- Syncs with some of the most popular apps (Gmail, Google Docs, Slack etc.)
Cons:
- It takes time to set up, especially for team collaboration. Project teams need not only a capable solution, but also one that works immediately with minimum configuration.
- Formatting of text does not work well when using copy/paste.
*Great for: * Everyone
2. Obsidian
“A second brain, for you, forever.”
Hats off to the marketing team at Obsidian… two brains for the price of one?! Sign me up!
Obsidian is a knowledge base note-taking application that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. Don’t let the Obsidian screenshots below scare you. In its simplest form, Obsidian is a place where you dump and search data, and it’s perfect for discovering insights from your notes
There’s a visually-striking graph view that’s a kind of “mind map” of all your files stored in Obsidian, a “Markdown format importer” that can find and replace certain Markdown syntax elements in your files, and support for math and diagram syntax. That really just scratches the surface of Obsidian’s capabilities. Obsidian is extensible, and there are dozens of free community plugins available within the application.
Pros:
- It’s a free application
- Lightweight and very customizable
- You can use it offline on your Mac Windows and Linux devices for desktop
- Easy to see a representation in graph view. Able to switch between notes quickly. Able to interlink through notes of (almost) unrelated subjects.
- Locally stored, not dependent on cloud
Cons:
- No What You See Is What You Get (WYSISYG) editor yet. On the product backlog
- No mobile app
- Requires .md files
Great For: Data Scientist, Researchers, developers, students
3. Walling
Walling is an application to manage and organize all your projects and ideas. It helps you visually work through projects and research. Walling is based around an idea generation concept that basically where you capture an idea, and you can help link it to existing notes inside your wall encounter and then if you want to if it comes into a project or an idea that needs further explanation you can turn into a wall, and it has a board light features to help you to expand and section out certain activities tasks and ideas as you’re generating this idea now, it’s got some good graph abilities a wizard to help you can. Connect up stuff and really dig deeper on each note you add and a daily desk for helping you to dump stuff there collect stuff and organize it for later, it’s quite a new concept, but I really like it.
Pros:
- Easy to use out of the box
- Free Basic account
Cons:
- Lack of integration with popular apps such as Google’s Gmail and Calendar
- There’s currently not an offline function or an Android app
- The free version is somewhat limited.
Great for: Everyone (Especially Product or Program Managers, UX Designers/Researchers, Students).
If Obsidian looked interesting but a little daunting, not to worry. You can try HyperNotes .
HyperNotes is a digital knowledge management solution for teams, perfect for wikis, intranets, documentation, and intelligent content. This app lets you express your knowledge in a natural way. Everything is connected, and so is your knowledge: It forms a network. With Hypernotes, you easily create a semantic network of your knowledge. Whether for personal use or for your business, it helps you collect your knowledge and share it with others.
Pros:
- Free personal account
- Automatic suggestions to link related but as yet unconnected notes
- Bi-directional linking between related notes for easy knowledge connections (Graph view of your notes)
- Works on mobile, desktop, and the web.
Cons:
- Relatively new and the free tier feels restricted
*Great For: * Everyone
5. Nimbus Note
Nimbus Note allows you to create notes with document or photo attachments, build to-do lists and synchronize them with a user’s Nimbus Note account to store them online. Nimbus Note has an integrated text editor that allows to change the text style in different ways and enabling to insert varying data structures such as pictures, tables, hyperlinks, various lists, etc. I also like some web and screenshot clipping abilities.
Pros:
- The app is cross-platform, for Android, iOS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows.
- Easy categorization. Nimbus Notes uses both a hierarchical folder structure and hashtags (#).
Cons:
- No Linux version
- Free tier has no offline access
- Limited styling functions
Great for: Everyone (Especially Product or Program Managers, UX Designers/Researchers, Students)
Honorable mentions
I didn’t want to make this list to exhaustive, if you want a few other recommendations I would suggest Typoraand Workflowy.
Hope you found this helpful and let me know which one you like best or other cool apps out there.
Thanks for Reading.
Ken
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