Microsoft OneNote vs Joplin

OneNote allows you to arrange text freely on the digital paper mimicking the way it would be done with a real pen on real paper.

Can have multiple 'sections/tabs' at the top like in a web browser with many notes within each 'section/tab'. Also, there can be sections within section groups infinitely. The complete hierarchy looks like this: Notebooks > Section Groups ... Section Groups > Sections > Pages > Sub-pages > Sub-pages.

OneNote is designed to allow hierarchical organization of information. This is achieved with grouping into the following categories and UI elements (Notebooks, Sections, and Pages). Both Sections and Pages allow additional groupings that can be expanded / collapsed in list view.

This can be incredibly helpful for quickly taking notes and organizing them for work or personal projects.

For example, you could have a Notebook for "Cooking Recipes", with sections for "breakfast, dinner, desserts", where individual recipes would be page entries (i.e. the "Desserts" section would have pages for brownies, chocolate cheesecake etc).

Adding and resizing rows and columns is easy and flexible. This makes for an easy way to adjust a note as it grows in content size.

You can add a variety of different files into your notes including images, video, audio, and more.

If you don't want to search through all of your notes, you can narrow it down by specifying the page, section, group, or notebook.
You're not limited to just searching through your text either. You can search for text in images, video recordings, and audio (this is off by default).

Which makes it easy to quickly look at the high level of notes, and then drill deep into each point.

You can choose what notebook the notes will save to. E-mail notes to your special Onenote e-mail and it will be accessible across all devices.

OneNote can be used on all touch capable devices via stylus or digitizer pen making for an intuitive and easy way to take notes by hand, which can often be faster or just preferred over typing. It has the best pen input out of any note taking app.

If you have experience with other Microsoft programs such as Microsoft Office, you'll feel right at home with the design of OneNote thanks to the similarity of the menus.

You can fully customize your default font (the color, type of font, and font size). You can override this styles with the same options (and more) in individual notes.

You can take handwritten notes on your mobile device with a stylus or digital pen and then convert the handwriting to text later on your Windows PC.

Has a web clipper extension on Chrome and Edge that can be used for clipping whole articles and images. Web clipping of articles is also available on Chrome mobile through the "Share" option.

Its available Windows Mobile, Windows Store, Android, a Desktop Version, and a Web app. Apple macOS and iOS are also supported.

Integrates well with Outlook, Office, and OneDrive.

You can share your notes by inviting people with an e-mail, or by giving them a direct URL. You have control over what kind of access the user has on your note (read only, edit) and can revoke it at any time.
OneNote will alert you when a chance is made on your shared note.

Unlike most other apps, you can selectively password protect, and fully encrypt, individual documents or entire folders. This is especially important to many people with data stored in the cloud. As of early this year, even the free version supports encryption. Microsoft has also enhanced their internal security methods for storing data on OneDrive (where OneNote performs sync), which makes it more secure than most of their competitors (including Evernote).

You can perform mathematical calculations in OneNote like a calculator.
e.g. 1+2=3,
85/4=21.25,
8!=40,320,
7^2=49

Handwritten mathematical equations can be converted to typed mathematical equations. Moreover, you can ask OneNote to solve the equation too.

You can copy / search text in images added to OneNote.

You can view the history of any page and revert to a previous version.

The badge on Android hovers over on your screen similar to Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads. You can tap it and instantly start jotting down your thoughts without having to flip to the app first.

This is great for taking meeting minutes. You can import all the meeting details, including a checklist of attendees and a link back to the original event in your Outlook calendar. You can tag all the actions coming out of a meeting and you can create linked tasks from them in Outlook. Much quicker and more effective than writing meeting minutes the traditional way.

The ability to quickly file away web clippings is a key part of note taking.

You have quite a few options for themes available with illustrated backgrounds. If you want something a bit more simple while still having personality, there are also several color themes.

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

Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.

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

Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers.

English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others.

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

Can sync using Dropbox.