Zim

Zim is a wiki editor for the desktop. It is open source and available for most operating systems. It follows all the usual conventions of wiki editing and has lots of plugins available. I could see myself using it regularly, though I would need to find workarounds for some usability problems I’ve noticed.

The system for managing Wikis makes for a good analogue of individual notebooks, with as many sections and as much nesting as you want. It is also designed with later web publishing in mind, and much of the formatting follows web standards, though you are limited to only available HTML elements. Nothing more granular.

The table editor is awful and doesn’t support ↹ tabbing. The plugins that are available often have Linux library dependencies so even after you install the app you may find certain plugins non-functional.

Xournal++

Xournal++ is a fork of the earlier app xournal. It is open source and available for most operating systems. It works well with a tablet, but it’s not an application I can see myself using to replace my existing note taking apps. It feels more like a drawing and graphics program masquerading as a note taking app. For example, when resizing a text block instead of text reflowing, it scales.

It feels like a good analogue for drawing of sketching on paper, and has a workflow designed for annotating PDFs. The pressure sensitive inking is a nice touch.

It does not work as a notebook, where you may want to keep lots of text alongside sketches. It is awkward that you are limited to sheets of paper and that there is no option for an infinite canvas.

The UX is bad. It lacks a lot of contextual awareness, so you have to keep manually switching tools as you change what you’re doing. I’m getting some GIMP feelings from this.

Notebook PEA

This is a note taking app for the ultra-paranoid. It is designed so that notes are never unencrypted, except in memory.

This looks like a student’s first java project, and the user interface is just awful to use.

As a note taking app it is no better than a regular notepad, the only advantage it really offers is as a wrapper for encryption.

It has zero support for advanced note taking features like tables, embedded images, or complex formatting of any kind.

CherryTree

A note taking app that was clearly written by nerds. It’s not for notes, but nodes.

It is a well designed hierarchical note taking system. It has good support for lots of different formatting and inline tables. Though it also lacks drag handles for images.

It offers an import feature, which is nice, however the only big service it imports from is Evernote. If you want to come from OneNote, it says you have to go via Evernote, which is annoying.

The file types are either zipped SQL database or XML. The manual says that for a database you need to clean it every now and then, and that you shouldn’t use XML for large files. This seems needlessly complex and makes me concerned for the integrity of my notes.

Joplin

Joplin is an electron app that edits markdown. The first time I saw it I thought “This is just like VS Code”. The only extra interesting things it offers are attachments (converted to base64 files), a WYSIWYG editor (that the website warns against using as in some cases What You See Is Not What You Get).

To see your files, you need to turn sync on (even the local filesystem needs to be “synced” to). It’s just markdown, for some reason attachments are turned into base64.

Notes organisation is decent. You can nest notebooks, but then notes are in a flat structure. It also has a tag system.

Joplin was the only open source app I tested that had a first party android app.

Basket

Basket is the only note taking application that I’ve seen even come close to OneNote’s idea of canvases where you can place arbitrary text wherever you want.

That said, the whole interface is incredibly clunky to use, and after the initial release nearly a decade ago it doesn’t seem to have had a new update since.

This is unfortunate as I feel that with the might of KDE development teams behind it, baskets could well have been the replacement I was after.

org-mode

org-mode is a text file format. It’s main implementation is via emacs.

I have tried to get used to emacs several times, but quite frankly I see no reason to use it. The emacs concepts of buffers (and the UI in general) is simply unintuitive, and I don’t have the patience nor time to learn it.

org-mode is a text file markdown-like language with some extra toys thrown in. It can hook into basically anything Linux via script segments.

Maybe if I was forced to spend time at a command line, but for day to day note taking on the desktop? No thank you.

Vivaldi

The Vivaldi browser contains a built-in note editor. It uses markdown and has a visual editor. Files are all stored on disk in a single json file for some reason, and export to individual files is not ready yet.

For basic note taking and referencing websites it works well. When I need to type something lengthy with newlines into a web chat box, but I don’t want to accidentally send it, I can use notes. It is also really useful for holding snippets that I need to re-use elsewhere, as they can be easily inserted via the context menu.

But due to the lack of ink support, difficult to use inline image attachments, I can’t use it as my go-to for more detailed notes.