Task Coach vs Joplin
When comparing Task Coach vs Joplin, the Slant community recommends Joplin for most people. In the question“What are the best cross-platform task apps?” Joplin is ranked 5th while Task Coach is ranked 22nd.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and open source
With access to the source code, savvy users can make under-the-hood tweaks to suit their work style.
Pro Unlimited nesting of items and lists
When things grow in complexity, their parts can be turned into discrete task items within a hierarchical structure.
Pro Tracks hours and budget
Task Coach allows you to track how long it actually takes to complete a task and can be used to analyze the resulting impact on billing and budget.
Pro Tracks percent finished
Pro Offline access
Pro Open source
Peace of mind that there is no malicious piece of software in the app.
Pro Encryption
Pro Cross-platform
Supports Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.
Pro Supports file attachments
Pro Supports markdown
Pro Supports tags for notes
Pro Web Clipper
Browser extension saves full pages, clean content, or screen selections to new notes.
Pro Optional CLI interface
Provides a CLI interface for terminal lovers.
Pro Supports multiple languages
English, French, and Spanish, Italian, German, Czech and many others.
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.
Pro Dropbox support
Can sync using Dropbox.
Pro Nextcloud support
Pro Timed alarm reminder for to-do lists
Cons
Con No updated package for recent linux distros
deb package available to download does not install app
Con Multiple users can access a file over a network, but there’s no web-based interface for straightforward collaboration
A task file may be opened by several instances of Task Coach, either running on the same computer or on different ones (on a network share for instance). When you save, Task Coach will merge your work with whatever has been saved on the disk prior. Conflicts are automatically resolved, usually by you winning the conflict.
This serves two use cases: 1) A single user opening the task file on several computers (work, home, laptop) and 2) several users working on the same task file.
The first case is the most common and the most secure. The second case may be dangerous. Most network disk sharing protocols do not support the kind of file locking that would make this 100% secure. A list of common protocols and their behavior can be found in the Task Coach help file.
Con Sync issues with Android
If update on Linux then sync on Android, sometimes the Android sync will duplicate or remove some journal notes. Seems to be a bug in the Android app. The Linux app alone without sync with Android seems to work well using Dropbox. But don't expect changes you make on Android to sync properly back to Linux.
Con Sync issue under Linux
The Linux client has a bug that requires the user to click the mouse frequently in order for sync to proceed. This bug has been open for a while.
Con Gargantuan memory footprint
1GB+ of memory for taking notes.
Con Old school interface
Con Bloated
This project is suffering from feature creep and uses a lot of memory for a note-taking app.
Con App Image launches very slowly
On Linux, you can only install via App Image, which take 5+ seconds to launch. I can launch LibreOffice in under two seconds.
Con Sync issues on Windows
No way to change account settings and sync easily corrupted.
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.