// the find
laurent22/joplin
Joplin - the privacy-focused note taking app with sync capabilities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
Joplin is a mature, offline-first note-taking app targeting users who want to own their data. It stores notes as Markdown in a local SQLite database and syncs to user-controlled backends (Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3-compatible, Dropbox, OneDrive). The target audience is developers and privacy-conscious users who don't want their notes living in a SaaS silo.
True offline-first with local SQLite — your notes exist on disk, not in someone else's database. You pick the sync backend, so you're not locked into Joplin Cloud. The E2E encryption is well-implemented: keys never leave your device and sync still works. Plugin ecosystem is genuinely useful — things like note templates, kanban boards, and enhanced search have real community adoption. Evernote import is thorough: formatted content converts to Markdown, attachments and metadata (geolocation, timestamps) come across intact.
Electron, so expect 300–400MB RAM at idle for what is ultimately a text editor. The mobile apps lag behind the desktop feature-by-feature and the sync-on-mobile experience has historically been flaky — conflicts resolve by duplication, not merging. The plugin API gives plugins significant access with minimal sandboxing; there's no meaningful trust boundary between a plugin and your note data. Full-text search is SQLite FTS5 — fast but no fuzzy matching or typo tolerance, which is noticeable once your notebook grows past a few hundred notes.