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AndroidiOSLinuxWindowsProductivitymacOSCross PlatformNote Takingzettelkasten

What are the best cross-platform zettelkasten apps?

10

Options
Considered

181

User
Recs.

Oct 6, 2023

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 9 OptionsWhy?

Best cross-platform zettelkasten apps	Price	Platforms	Collaborative
90 Obsidian	Free / paid	Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android	Upcoming
-- logseq	FREE	Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS	-
-- Joplin	FOSS	Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS	-
-- Zettlr	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac	-
-- Anki	0.00	-	-

Obsidian

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Top Pro

Not locked to a provider

No lock-in to a certain company - just markdown files on disk. See More

Top Con

Not open-source

PowerfulPhylonoe's Experience

Unbelivable software. Ideal for Zettlekasten. Everything you could wish for. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android

Collaborative:Upcoming

Offline access:Yes

Search:Advanced

Top Pro

Helps visualize personal knowledge in ways nothing else allows

Top Con

Flashcards can't be inside a block or a toggle

This creates a huge mess. See More

Top Pro

All the Zettelkasten functionality and then some

You can automatically generate Zettelkasten prefixes if your wish, but it also includes bidirectional linking, the coolest (and most functional) linking graph in town, is based on local MD files AND is free. What else could you wish for? WYSIWYG is on the short-term goal list. See More

Top Con

Too many plugins, too little polish

Top Pro

Lightweight and very customizable

Variety of settings, and community themes & plugins, available from built-in marketplace. Every community plugin is open-source which means you can learn from it and develop your own. See More

Top Pro

Markdown rather than outline/blocks

Top Pro

Locally stored, not dependent on cloud

Everything is stored in your device. You can back them up, encrypt and process however you want to. Works completely offline. Read your notes anytime, anywhere. See More

Top Pro

Backlinking

This allows you to link notes back and forth really easily. See More

Top Pro

In-line tagging

Ability to tag-as-you-write and find each occurrence of a tag in the entire vault makes it very easy to organize and retrieve notes. Supports nested tags. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform: works on Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS

Top Pro

Metadata

Add a custom metadata to a note with YAML front matter. See More

Top Pro

Linking to blocks

You can link to a block - e.g.: paragraph, blockquote, heading. See More

Top Pro

Exporting as PDF

Allows exporting your markdown files as PDFs rendered with all of your plugins. See More

Top Pro

Graph view

A pretty, alternative way to represent links between your notes. See More

8 Other Options Considered

logseq

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Top Pro

Org support

Logseq support Emacs Org syntax out of the box. See More

Top Con

Still in Alpha

Logseq is still in Alpha and is under heavy development. See More

ArtisticAmun's Experience

support for block references, backlinking, pdf annotations, space repition 'cards'. excellent compatibility of notes, and other apps. community is very active and new features are on their way. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, iOS

Offline access:Yes

Markdown support:Yes

Technology:Clojure

Top Pro

Open source

Logseq is opensource. See More

Top Con

IDs are not so obvious

Top Pro

Privacy-first

Logseq is a privacy-first tool for thought. See More

Top Pro

Local-first software

Every topic is its own flat file. Nothing is better than keeping your data in the file system with an option of git source control or online backup. See here. See More

Top Pro

Org syntax

Logseq support Emacs Org syntax out of the box. See More

Top Pro

Granular design

Make it as simple or complex as you want. See More

Top Pro

Networked notes

Similar to Roam's technique of letting the notes flow with links to each other. See More

Top Pro

Daily journal is capture on Steriods

The daily journal feature allows you to quickly capture disparate topics under today's date and by way of tags make things organized and findable from any topic page. See More

Top Pro

Markdown

Top Pro

iOS app clean and clear

iOS app has a very clean UI .. on phone it is actually quite usable… just what you need to capture fleeting thoughts and notes. Not too many options getting in the way all the time. See More

Top Pro

Structured data over willy-nilly formatting

Lots of apps are too graphically flexible in how they allow content to be entered, placed, and formatted. They act like Word when what you want when authoring content is Markdown. Content and semantic structure, not graphical frills. See More

Joplin

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Top Pro

Open source

Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app. See More

Top Con

Bloated

This project is suffering from feature creep and uses a lot of memory for a note-taking app. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iOS

Sync:File System, OneDrive, Next Cloud, WebDav, DropBox, JoplinCloud, s3 (Beta)

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. See More

Top Con

Old school interface

Top Pro

Offline access

Top Con

Can't create tags from the mobile app

Top Pro

Supports tags for notes

Top Con

Weak tag searching

Joplin can currently only search for a single tag at a time. None of the boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) are available for use in searches. This greatly diminishes the usefulness of tags in Joplin. See More

Top Pro

Encryption

Top Pro

Supports file attachments

Top Pro

Active user forum with support from app creators

Support, troubleshooting, and new feature requests are easy to make at the user forum and you can contact the app creator directly. See More

Top Pro

Modules made by the community

Top Pro

Web Clipper

Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes. See More

Top Pro

Supports markdown

Zettlr

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Top Pro

Citation support

While it supports many syntax (chart, easy image insert, etc.) found in other editors, the great citation support made it possible to write real articles. Citation from Zotero and Mendeley can be inserted easily which is a huge plus. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Technology:Electron, TypeScript

Top Pro

Focuses on writers

While many Markdown editors don't offer specific support for a certain type of workflow, or offer features for scientific workflows only, Zettlr offers features that help the writing process of journalists or researchers in the arts and humanities. It's a lot more text-focused than most editors. See More

Top Pro

Zettelkasten-centric design

IDs are generated for filenames, they're easy to insert anywhere in the document, automatically recognized, and easy to link or search. See More

Anki

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Samepage

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Top Pro

Collaborative software

VigilantNyx's Experience

very good! See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac, Mobile

RamSync

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Hypernotes

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