When comparing nvALT vs Collate Notes, the Slant community recommends nvALT for most people. In the question“What is the best note taking app for Mac?” nvALT is ranked 10th while Collate Notes is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose nvALT is:
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Powerful search syntax
nvALT has a simple text box at the top (similar to that of a web browser) and when you start typing inside it, nvALT immediately displays a drop-down box of all the notes that contain the text you are searching for. The more you type, the more the search is narrowed down.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Free

Pro MultiMarkdown 3 support
Has built-in support for MultiMarkdown 3.
Pro Powerful note-taking features
nvALT is not only used for simple text editing but also as a powerful tool for taking notes, TODOs, phone numbers and every other piece of information that can be stored in a plain-text file.
This is because nvALT is not designed only as a tool to write text, but also as a powerful search and organize tool for plain-text files.
Pro Right to Left support
Pro Markdown or Rich Text editor
Choose between Markdown or Rich Text editor.
Pro Web clipper
A web clipper built into the app saves web pages locally.
Pro All data is saved locally
Data is saved to a local hard drive, not stored on a company's servers.
Pro Cross-platform support
Support for macOs, Windows and Linux.
Cons
Con Not very powerful as far as text editing goes
nvALT's strength is its search feature. It has some basic text-editing features such as cut, paste, find-and-replace and so on. But it doesn't have any advanced text manipulation features available in other editors.
Con No mobile support
This app offers no mobile support.
Con No built-in sync options
For data syncing, a service like Google Drive or Dropbox needs to be used.
