Note: This post was originally published to medium. https://medium.com/tech-with-nonresistant/best-note-taking-apps-2021-part-2-note-taking-apps-that-support-markdown-54c99d516a69 You can only ready part 1 on medium at: https://medium.com/tech-with-nonresistant/best-note-taking-apps-2021-e67e89eb0c27
I know I just wrote about some of my favorite or best note-taking apps. But since then(I know it wasn’t that long ago), I fell in love with note-taking apps that support Markdown. So here I go…
1. SimpleNote
Simple Note was the only note-taking app I mentioned in my last post that supports Markdown. I know I said I didn’t really like it that much. But it does depend on what you are looking for. All around it is a great note-taking app even if ups don’t want to take notes in Markdown. Here are some things this note-taking app gets right:
- SimpleNote is cross-platform meaning you can get it on all your devices.
- SimpleNote is free.
- SimpleNote syncs your notes.
2. Notable
Notable is similar to SimpleNote. It's free and they have a desktop app. But…
This is where things start to get different. They currently don’t have a mobile app. And they don’t sync your notes. Notable would defiantly be the app to use if you take a lot of notes in Markdown. The way they display Markdown is a step-up from SimpleNote. They also auto-complete some things. They support searching through and organizing your notes. But it is defiantly a little more for technical users as you have to be in charge of where your notes are stored locally.
Some other things they support:
- KaTeX expressions
- Mermaid diagrams
3. Bear
Bear is cool. But it cost money and is only available for apple devices. You can even dictate notes from your apple watch. Currently, the only Apple device I have is a MacBook. And another reason I am not likely to use Bear is that it is not an entirely free app. Also, their support for taking notes in Markdown is not one of their strong points.
4. Inkdrop
Inkdrop is cool, and they have apps for every platform. But Inkdrop is not a free app, so I haven’t tried it. From the looks of it. It looks like they make it easy to organize notes in different notebooks and you can also add tags to notes too.
5. Notion
Wow. I got to say Notion is amazing. I can’t believe I have never heard of it before. They support Markdown. But that is not it. It is easy to drag and drop your notes to create columns and it is easy to embed content from the web. It is an amazing free app that you can get on Windows, Mac, and your mobile devices.
6. Ulysses
Ulysses is another cool note-taking app that supports markdown. It is advertised as “The Ultimate Writing App for Mac, iPad, and iPhone”. You can even publish to WordPress and Medium right from within the app. But Ulysses is not free.
7. Slite
Wow. Slite is pretty cool. It is free and it works great with slack. So if you have a team on slack Slite would be a great application for your team to take notes. It is fairly similar to Notion in that you can drag each line of your notes around, but you can’t create columns.
8. Standard Note
This app is cool too. But it is not free. It supports Markdown among other things.
Worth Mentions:
There are so many other great applications out there for editing markdown. They are not necessarily for taking notes, but I thought I would mention them anyway.
VS Code. This is a developer tool.
Dillinger. It is a cloud-enabled, mobile-ready, offline-storage, AngularJS powered HTML5 Markdown editor.
Typora. A truly minimal markdown editor.
Why would you want a note-taking app that supports markdown?
It depends on who you are. Some people like to takes notes in Markdown.
Even if you are not someone who knows markdown, many of these note-taking apps are great. You don’t need to know markdown to use them.
There was a time when I didn’t care if the note-taking app I used supported markdown. But now that I know markdown. There is no going back. This was such a fun post to write because I discovered so many amazing apps for taking notes.
What is one reason you like to take notes in markdown?
One reason I personally like to take notes in markdown is just that formatting the text is easier, and faster. (Plus markdown supports things like code blocks something that word processors and other note-taking apps don’t support.)
So in closing what is the best note-taking app that supports markdown?
If you are looking for a free app, that is also simple and easy to use. I would say SimpleNote. If you are a little more tech-savvy and want to be in control of storing and syncing your notes I would say Notable.
(Notion is also amazing, and cool. Too amazing for my brain to comprehend. Anyway moving on.)
If you only use Apple devices and are willing to pay something I would say use Bear or Ulysses.
If you are willing to pay something and have more than just Apple devices I would say use Inkdrop. It looks to be by far the best note-taking app. But I don’t know I haven’t tried it.
Will, I use any of them?
I certainly can’t use all the note-taking apps I mentioned. And choosing one to make my main app will be hard they are all so amazing. But I will defiantly be using one or more of these amazing note-taking apps. How about you?
Well, that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed reading. If you know of any great note-taking apps that support markdown that I left out feel free to share in the comments.
Top comments (1)
I wanted to add here, because I have been doing a lot of growing and learning since I wrote this.
When I wrote this I had no idea what markdown was.
Since then I have been using markdown almost extensively, I have come to the conclusion that one can never have to many markdown files. Speaking of files I prefer having access to my markdown files and syncing them myself with git. And my current favorite app not mentioned in this article is Obsidian.
I know most pros who read this article might laugh at it because they have their own favorite tool, and probably tell that I was a noob when I wrote this.
If you are a noob, like I was, let me know.
If you are a pro, I would love to know what your favorite tool or setup is. Lets connect here in the comments!