Joplin

Joplin is an open source note-taking and to-do app with Markdown notes, notebooks, tags, web clipper and end-to-end encryption, available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. It appeals to people leaving Evernote or OneNote who want to own their files. The apps are free with no feature gating; the only paid product is Joplin Cloud, an optional sync service.

What the free plan gives you

Everything in the desktop and mobile apps is free: unlimited notes and notebooks, attachments, multimedia notes, plugins and themes. Sync is free too if you use your own backend, which can be Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, S3 or a self-hosted Joplin Server. Joplin Server is open source as well, so a team can run their own sync at no cost.

Where the free plan stops

You pay only if you want Joplin's hosted sync. Joplin Cloud Basic is EUR 2.99 a month (EUR 2.40 a month billed annually) for 2 GB of storage and a 10 MB maximum note size, with publishing and syncing but no notebook sharing. Pro at EUR 5.99 a month adds notebook sharing, Email to Note, 30 GB and 200 MB notes; Pro 100 GB is EUR 9.99 a month and Teams is EUR 7.99 per user a month with a two-user minimum. The web app is only available to Joplin Cloud subscribers.

Who it suits

Anyone who wants a private, file-based note app and is fine pointing it at Dropbox or a WebDAV share can use Joplin for free forever. If you want sync that just works across devices without configuring a backend, or you need to share notebooks with others, Joplin Cloud Basic or Pro is cheap enough that the decision is easy.