Free-form digital notebook from Microsoft
OneNote is Microsoft's free-form note-taking app, organizing notes into notebooks, sections, and pages with handwriting, audio, and web clipping support. It integrates deeply with Microsoft 365.
Classic note-taking and web clipping
Evernote popularised digital note-taking with web clipping, notebooks and powerful search. Many users have drifted away as pricing rose and the app slowed.
All-in-one workspace for notes and docs
Notion combines documents, databases and wikis in a single flexible workspace used by millions of teams.
Self-organising AI notes
Mem captures notes and automatically links, tags and surfaces them, removing the manual database upkeep that workspaces like Notion require.
A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files
Obsidian stores notes as local Markdown files and lets users build a linked 'second brain' with backlinks and graph view. Plugins extend it with AI and other capabilities.
Quick notes and lists, synced everywhere
Google Keep is a lightweight note-taking app for quick text, checklist, and voice notes, integrated with Google Workspace and Gemini AI suggestions. It's aimed at simple capture rather than deep organization.
Beautiful, focused notes for Apple devices
Bear is a Markdown-based note-taking app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad with tag-based organization and an AI writing assistant. It focuses on a clean writing experience.