When comparing The Brain vs Boostnote, the Slant community recommends Boostnote for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Boostnote is ranked 10th while The Brain is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose Boostnote is:
Supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Cloud syncing
With an account for syncing on their servers, you can run the brain on multiple computers.
Pro Good support
Worthwhile support is offered, especially for those that pay for a subscription.
Pro Cross platform support
Supports Windows, macOS and Linux.
Pro Markdown support
Pro Free
Pro Open source
See here.
Pro Great for developers
Boostnote is great for developers looking to take programming notes with code snippets and such.
Pro Supports code snippets and syntax highlighting
Boostnote has the ability to store code snippets and comes with syntax highlighting out of the box, supporting many languages.
Pro Works offline
Boostnote doesn't require an internet connection to work. You can write notes offline and sync later.
Pro Global search, tag feature
Pro Comes with many themes
Boostnote comes with many themes out of the box, most of which are popular themes and color schemes for code editors: e.g. 3024, base16, solarized, tomorrow.
Pro vim/emacs key bindings available
Boostnote supports vim/emacs key bindings. If you're a developer familiar with either of them, navigation should be easy to pick up.
Cons
Con Expensive
There is either a $15 a month subscription fee or a license that ranges from $219 to $299. There is a 30 day free trial for those who would like to test it before subscribing or purchasing, but overall to use this app it can be pricey.
Con High learning curve
There is a little bit of a learning curve with all software, and this is no exception.
Con Some of the features are not consistent
Con Must use third-party service for sync-ing (Dropbox, etc.)
Boostnote does not have sync-ing capabilities and relies on third-party services to fulfil notes storage. There are additional steps involved to set this up.
Con Can't work in "real" offline mode
Con Very poor syncing
Data loss may occur on syncing.