★ 55,164TypeScriptNOASSERTIONupdated Jun 2026
best for anyone who wants one mature note app that just works everywhere, with reliable sync
Joplin is the one to pick if you just want a note app that works and keeps working. It's been around long enough that sync isn't a leap of faith, you choose the backend yourself instead of being stuck on anyone's cloud, and the end-to-end encryption is implemented properly — keys never leave your device, and sync still works through it.
The cost is Electron: 300-400MB of RAM at idle for what's ultimately a text editor, steep next to Memos' single 20MB binary. Mobile lags desktop feature-by-feature, and sync conflicts on mobile resolve by duplicating the note rather than merging it — expect duplicates eventually, not a clean merge.
Plugins get real, unsandboxed access to your notes, so only install ones you trust. And past a few hundred notes, search is SQLite FTS5 — fast, but no fuzzy matching, so a typo gets you nothing instead of a close guess.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 45,308ClojureAGPL-3.0updated Oct 2026
best for people who think in outlines and want backlinks to be the main interface, not an add-on
Logseq is for people who think in outlines first and treat backlinks as the main way of navigating, not a bonus feature bolted onto a traditional notebook the way Joplin treats them. The engineering discipline is unusual for an OSS note app — dedicated e2e suites, lint hooks, dependency audits — and the plugin ecosystem is mature with real documentation.
The catch is you're choosing between two different products under one name. The stable file-based version is plain Markdown you can trust long-term; the new database-backed version with real-time sync is explicitly beta, and the README itself warns data loss is possible — a rough look for a tool whose entire pitch is keeping your knowledge safe. Clojure/ClojureScript also keeps the contributor pool smaller than the star count suggests.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 46,854TypeScriptAGPL-3.0updated Oct 2026
best for block-based thinkers who want a private, self-hosted vault with AI built in
SiYuan is the block-based option, closer to Notion's editing model than Joplin or Logseq, with a CLI that's unusually complete — full CRUD, SQL queries, scriptable JSON output. If you want to automate your notes rather than just write them, this is the one with the hooks for it. Self-hosting via Docker is detailed and clearly battle-tested, down to OIDC and permission handling most self-hosted projects fumble.
But it's AGPL with a paid tier bolted on for cloud sync and some AI features, so read the pricing page before assuming it's all free — unlike Joplin, where sync is free because you bring your own backend. Third-party sync tools like Syncthing are explicitly unsupported and can corrupt your data, and the Docker deployment specifically can't do PDF or Word export, or Markdown import. Notes live as proprietary per-block .sy files, not plain Markdown, so leaving is more friction than it is with Joplin or Logseq.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 72,230DartAGPL-3.0updated Jun 2026
best for teams leaving Notion who still want databases and structured docs, just self-hosted
AppFlowy is the pick for a team leaving Notion that wants databases and kanban boards, not just documents — a different job than the personal vaults Joplin and Notesnook are built for. The Flutter-plus-Rust architecture is a real bet: one codebase runs natively across five platforms, and self-hosting is a first-class path with documented Docker setup, not an afterthought.
Real-time collaboration still isn't at Notion's level — you'll notice conflicts in busy shared documents. Mobile has real gaps in database views compared to desktop. And the AI features only work if you run AppFlowy's entire cloud backend yourself, so self-hosting the AI parts is a much bigger project than self-hosting the notes. There's also basically no plugin ecosystem; extensible here mostly means forking the code.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 69,278TypeScriptNOASSERTIONupdated Jun 2026
best for people who switch between freeform whiteboards and structured docs in the same session
AFFiNE is the one for people who bounce between a freeform whiteboard and a structured doc in the same session — Miro and Notion in one workspace, with a genuinely well-engineered CRDT layer underneath (they wrote their own Rust-based Yjs-compatible engine rather than bolting one on). Self-hosting via Docker Compose is straightforward.
Getting a dev environment running from a fresh checkout is a different story — Yarn 4, NX, Rust, and Electron all in one monorepo means something nearly always breaks. The AI features are thin wrappers over external LLM APIs gated behind their paid cloud tier, the same trade AppFlowy makes. And the plugin ecosystem has been 'coming soon' for years, so don't plan around third-party extensions the way you might with Logseq.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 61,477GoMITupdated Jul 2026
best for anyone who wants the lightest possible self-hosted tool for quick-capture notes
Memos is the lightest thing on this list by a wide margin — a single Go binary, a ~20MB Docker image, and an API surface (gRPC and REST, with an MCP adapter) actually built for integrations rather than scraping. If Joplin feels heavy for what you need, this is the other end of the spectrum: quick capture, not a full notebook.
It shows in what's missing, though. There's no mention of backup or restore tooling, which matters once you're relying on it daily. A 'docs/superpowers' folder of AI-generated plan files is a strange thing to find in the repo, and voice input via Gemini and OpenAI is already creeping in — feature creep against the lightweight pitch. Multi-user setups have historically had rough permission edges, so don't expect Outline-level team features.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 14,199TypeScriptGPL-3.0updated Jun 2026
best for privacy-conscious users who want end-to-end encryption on by default, not bolted on
Notesnook is the one to pick if encryption is the actual requirement, not a feature you assume exists. XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2 are solid, current choices, and they ship an independent tool called Vericrypt so you can check the claims yourself instead of trusting the README — Joplin's encryption is also good, but nobody's built you a way to verify it independently.
The trade-off: the server code isn't in this repo, so self-hosted here means running their official infrastructure or figuring out an underdocumented third-party setup, not the bring-your-own-backend freedom Joplin gives you. It's Electron on desktop too, the same RAM cost as Joplin, without Tauri's lighter footprint. And the Android code is still part Java, part Kotlin — a migration that's visibly unfinished.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
★ 38,894TypeScriptNOASSERTIONupdated Jun 2026
best for growing teams that need a shared, searchable knowledge base rather than a personal vault
Outline is the only one here built for a growing team's shared knowledge base rather than a personal vault — real-time multiplayer editing that's actually implemented, a ProseMirror-based editor with real structural power, and integrations (Slack, GitHub, Figma) that are properly maintained, not iframe embeds. The Docker-first self-hosting story is better than most of this list.
The license is the thing to know going in: BSL 1.1, not actual open source, so you can run it internally but can't fork it into a competing product, and it only converts to Apache 2.0 after four years. The team also blocks AI-generated PRs outright, which is a reasonable policy but makes the contributor experience feel closed despite the public repo. And under the hood, Sequelize and MobX are aging choices that show up as friction in the migration workflow for anyone used to Prisma or Zustand.
Our full take →GitHub ↗
// questions people ask
Before you choose
What's the real difference between Joplin and Logseq?
Joplin is a traditional notebook-and-note app with mature, reliable sync. Logseq is an outliner built around bidirectional links, closer to Roam, and it's mid-rewrite to a database-backed version whose README admits data loss is possible. Pick Joplin for something boring and stable, Logseq if backlinks are the whole point and you can tolerate rough edges.
Which of these is actually built for teams, not solo note-taking?
Outline and AppFlowy are the two built for teams — Outline as a wiki with real-time multiplayer editing, AppFlowy as a Notion-style workspace with databases and boards. Outline's self-hosted edition is BSL-licensed rather than true open source, converting to Apache only after four years. The other six are fundamentally personal tools, even where multi-user support exists.
Are any of these free, or is there a paid tier hiding somewhere?
SiYuan and AFFiNE both keep cross-device sync and most AI features behind a paid cloud tier, so check pricing before assuming the self-hosted app gives you everything. Outline is free to run internally but BSL-licensed, not OSI-approved open source. Joplin, Logseq, Memos, and Notesnook are the cleanest here — no feature paywall on the self-hosted app itself.
Which one is the most private or encrypted by default?
Notesnook is built around encryption from the start — XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2, with an independent tool called Vericrypt so you can check the claims rather than take their word for it. Joplin's end-to-end encryption is also solid and well-implemented. The difference is Notesnook's server code isn't in the repo, so self-hosting it means running their official infrastructure, not your own.
If you'd rather not run this comparison yourself every time a new note app shows up on Hacker News, the weekly finds.dev email does the same kind of digging for whatever you're actually into.