The best FREE note taking apps 2021

Sorry for not updating for several months but here I am! Anyways, fast-forward to the best note taking apps…

Note taking is important to all of us, especially students and people who are obsessive-compulsive about organisation. As far as I know, I’ve been through way too many note-taking apps for Windows and web. So I’d like to share my thoughts about them.

#1 - Notion

I’ve seen a lot of reviews about Notion, and I’ve been avoiding its gaze for a long time, but when I finally tried it, it was pure amazing.

Don’t get put off by its seemingly cheap UI and emojis (as I was) - Notion is the best choice if you love organisation, databases and lots and lots of folders.

Most reviews will tell you that Notion is built for teams, but so far Notion appears to be just as amazing for personal use. In fact, if you have a student email, you could get a Personal Pro plan for free!

Pros of Notion

• There are databases! This is the ultimate way of being organised. You could sort things into tables, boards, timelines, calendars, lists and galleries! You can have filters and linked databases and whatnot.
• It’s stored on the cloud. This means you can access all your notes from anywhere, like the web, your computer app, or your phone.
• You can share it on the web. If you make a page public and share the link, it’ll be just like a website. This is perfect for stuff like documentations or CV’s.
• Drag and drop everything into columns, reorder things, add rows, whatever. Notion is based off blocks, and these blocks can contain anything from text to code to databases and embeds. The best thing about it? You can turn them into columns.
• You can have an infinite cascade of folders. It can either be really messy or really organised, depending on how you use it.
• Markdown is supported! Some of the formats are done differently, but if you love markdown, you’ll definitely like this.

Cons of Notion

• Incompatible formats with Evernote. Importing anything from Evernote will completely mess up your notes. For some, this may be okay, but if you’re a heavy Evernote user, this may be an issue.
• Not-so-great UI. I mean, UI is pretty important, but though Notion looks good, it doesn’t really look like those other modern editors. But that’s just me criticizing.
• It’s quite complicated if you’re new. The basics are easy to learn, but a lot of the features may be overwhelming, like databases.
• Not much formatting. You can highlight blocks and colour text, and you can have all the codeblocks and everything you need, but you can’t highlight portions of text within a block nor center-align things and change the font size (aside from different headers). If you like aesthetics, you may have to lower your expectations.
• Not many paywalls. You’ll only really need paid accounts if you’re the sort of person who works in a team.

#2 - Typora

Notion may be a feature-filled app, but Typora is beautiful in its minimalist way. It’s best known as a super-simple Markdown editor. If you’re a student who needs to take notes on the go, or someone who procrastinates a lot fumbling with settings, this one’s for you.

Unlike many markdown editors, Typora is a WYSIWYG editor, which means that the moment you write the markdown, it auto-formats and gets rid of the unnecessary characters. If you need to edit the raw code, there’s also a view for that!

Pros of Typora

• It’s so simple, The moment you open it, you get a clean, white slate. It’s just beautiful and distraction-free.
• Markdown is amazing for quick notes. The WYSIWYG is also very helpful.
• You can edit the way everything looks with CSS. This may count as a con if you’re a developer, though. I’ve spent hours just customising Typora with this. There are also several themes on the store.
• It has a builtin converter. You can copy the text as markdown or HTML. As someone who owns a website with raw HTML, this is really useful.
• It has other modes like focus and typewriter, to get rid of any distractions.

Cons of Typora

• Themes are pretty hard to install.
• It uses your file system (on your computer). If you need cloud storage, you can use something else like Google Drive or OneDrive to sync.
• It won’t be free for long. During the BETA, it’s still free for everyone to use, but at some point you’ll need a one-time payment to use it.
• It’s so beautiful you get writer’s block looking at it. I’m sorry, but I just had to put this here.
• Typora isn’t exactly the same kind of notes app as Notion and Evernote, but it’s definitely worth a try.

#3 - Evernote

Evernote is really popular, but it’s gone under Notion and Typora for a couple of reasons. It does have many integrations as well as features, but with all its paywalls, I had to make a switch from here.

This app had been a favourite of mine for a while. It has all the features I like about Notion, but I really think it’s just forcing pro subscriptions down my throat.

I haven’t used this in a long time, so please forgive me.

Pros of Evernote

• It’s simple. Not as simple as Typora, but it’s got everything you need - Notebooks, notes, etc.
• A lot of formatting options. It’s really good if you want to start a bullet journal or want to be super aesthetic. The interface is really neat too.
• Tons of integrations. Since it’s popular, there’s bound to be a lot of integrations for Evernote.
• It’s stored in the cloud, so you can access it from any device. But there’s a catch…

Cons of Evernote

• Paywalls, paywalls everywhere! You get excited about a new feature, but it’s almost always paywalled. You can’t have everything you’d want. This was why I moved away from Evernote.
• You can only access Evernote in 3 devices for the free plan. And you can’t access your notes offline unless they were created in that device or cached.
• You can only have a notebook stack with notebooks in it, and each notebook can only have cards. This is quite horrible for accessibility, and you can’t have that much organisation.
• It doesn’t support markdown at all.

#4 - Nimbus Note

Most reviews don’t include Nimbus Note, but I think it deserves at least a mention.

As far as I know, Nimbus Note was built to be a direct competitor for Evernote, with a lot of ideal features you might like, but with a slight catch.

Pros of Nimbus Note

• You have every single feature of Evernote!
• You can sync across as many devices as you want, with offline access.
• It uses blocks, just like Notion. These blocks can be moved around to make columns and organised tables.
• Infinite cascading folders for all your organised messy needs!

Cons of Nimbus Note

• The big catch? You can only have 50 pages. Once you reach the limit, it’s the end for you. It’s not even mentioned in the pricing, and it sucks.
• It’s not as well-known as any of the other apps mentioned. This means less integrations and exporting.

#5 - Some special mentions…

• Pen and paper - there’s something nice about the pen’s ink on the beautiful paper. It’s a classic. It’s beautiful.
• Taskade - if you only need todo lists and projects, check out Taskade! It’s for projects only, and it’s aesthetic. You have many views like calendars and timelines, and lists, boards, and diagrams. It’s completely off if you’re using it for notes though. Navigation is also hard.
• Notepad - please. I beg you. Do not use notepad. Whether you’re typing notes or programming, I BEG YOU.
• Discord - if you use Discord a lot, why not just dump your thoughts in here? I built a personal bot that allows me to dump random thoughts into a discord server. It’s quite useful.
• Tell a friend to remember it - actually wouldn’t recommend. They’re always forgetful and its AI is most likely built to fail.

NOTE 23 Jul 2024: I have since discovered Obsidian. Local files. Absolutely amazing and cross-platform. Totally recommend. Also, Typora is now a paid app, but I really loved it back then. Notion is still amazing but seriously, I waste so many hours tweaking its databases and whatnot and sometimes I get frustrated when it’s not built for my use cases. Anyways, reading this review, it’s definitely one written by a kid specifically to help people… unlike those reviews on the internet that all repeat the same damn points over and over again.

Also, why did I hate Notepad? Notepad is fine. It’s good. It’s beautiful plain text.