The best markdown note apps in 2026, and why we pick Jotura

Our pick is Jotura, the app we make. Every note stays a plain .md file in a folder on your disk, and an Obsidian vault opens as it stands. You write in a visual editor that formats as you type, while encrypted sync, sharing and three years of version history live in the same app.

We think Jotura has the most complete feature set of any markdown notes app in 2026. It also has real gaps, the biggest being no iPhone app, and the table further down names the app to stay with when one of those gaps decides it for you. The rest of the page compares eleven other apps on the same terms, with prices checked on each vendor’s own site on October 10, 2026.

Why we pick Jotura

What you get	How it works
Plain files you own	Each vault is an ordinary folder of .md files that any editor, script or backup can read. An Obsidian vault opens with no import, and Obsidian can stay open on it.
No Markdown to learn	Type / for a table, checklist, heading or callout, and text formats as you type. A note you open and save unedited stays byte-identical, and an edit leaves every byte you did not touch.
Links, tags and daily notes	Type [[ to link a note, and renaming it updates every link. Tags work inline or in frontmatter, nested with a slash, with a Tags pane to browse them. A calendar opens any day’s note.
Tasks and tables	The Tasks pane gathers every checkbox in the vault, and @due(2026-10-30) puts a task on that day. Click a table cell to edit it, or drag a column edge to widen it.
Encrypted sync with history	Notes are encrypted on your device before they sync across Mac, Windows, Linux and Android. Every synced note keeps three years of version history, showing who changed what, with one-click restore.
Sharing	Share a folder or a single note. You stay its owner and invite each person as an editor or a viewer, and everyone in the share needs Jotura Sync.
An Android app that reads books	EPUB and PDF books and CBZ comics open on the phone, and each book’s highlights become a plain Markdown note. Notes and books reach the phone through Jotura Sync.
Search by meaning	On the desktop, semantic search finds a note by what it means when the words differ. It runs on your computer with a local model, or through your own OpenAI key.
Document conversion	PDFs, Word files, spreadsheets and slide decks get a searchable Markdown copy beside the original. The converter ships inside the app and runs offline.
A command line tool	The jotura CLI lets scripts and AI agents such as Claude Code read, search and edit your notes.
Price	The app is free on desktop and Android, with no account needed. Jotura Sync is £4 or $5 a month, or £40 or $50 a year.

Trying it costs nothing. Point the free app at a copy of your notes folder, and every other plain-file app on this page can still open the same files.

What Jotura lacks

• No iPhone or iPad app. Jotura runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android.
• The Android app keeps its vault in private storage with no folder picker, so Syncthing, Dropbox and iCloud cannot reach it. Desktop notes reach the phone only through paid Jotura Sync.
• Sync has no free trial, and every person in a share pays for their own subscription.
• The code is closed source, so you cannot audit the encryption yourself.
• There is no plugin system, no graph view, no Canvas and no backlinks panel. The CLI lists backlinks with jotura backlinks <path> --json.
• There is no publish-to-web feature and no database views such as boards or Obsidian’s Bases.
• Search by meaning works on the desktop only. The phone searches by title and text.
• Notes on disk are plain files, and your operating system’s disk encryption is what protects them there.

When another app fits better

What matters most to you	Stay with or try
An iPhone app	Obsidian, Bear or iA Writer
Community plugins and a graph view	Obsidian
Free sync to your phone through iCloud or Syncthing	Obsidian
Open source code	Logseq, Joplin, Zettlr, Notesnook or Standard Notes
Databases with properties and views	Notion. Logseq 2.0, its database version in beta, adds typed properties
Free end-to-end encrypted sync	Notesnook, Standard Notes, or Joplin over your own storage
Long-form manuscripts on Apple devices	Ulysses or iA Writer
Academic writing with citations	Zettlr
One payment, no account, one document at a time	Typora
Notes inside your code editor, kept in Git	VS Code with Foam
An outliner built on block references	Logseq

Plain-file apps can all open the same copied folder, so comparing two of them side by side costs nothing. Readers leaving Obsidian will find six apps covered in depth on the Obsidian alternatives page.

How these apps were judged

Each app is measured against six criteria:

• Plain files you own. The live copy is an ordinary .md file in a folder, readable by any editor or script.
• Mobile. A native app on iPhone and on Android, listed separately.
• Sync and its cost. The app’s own sync service and its price, or storage you already have.
• Encryption. Whether sync is end-to-end encrypted, so the server’s operator cannot read your notes.
• Open source. Whether the code is published under a license that lets anyone read and fork it.
• Price. What the app itself costs, separate from sync.

The comparison at a glance

Where your notes live and which devices can open them:

App	Notes stored as	Desktop and web	iPhone	Android
Jotura	Plain .md files on desktop	Windows, Mac, Linux	No	Separate app vault, filled only by paid Jotura Sync
Obsidian	Plain .md files	Windows, Mac, Linux	Yes	Yes
Logseq OG	Markdown or Org-mode files	Windows, Mac, Linux	Yes	Yes
Logseq 2.0 (beta)	Local SQLite database	Windows, Mac, Linux, web	TestFlight beta	APK on GitHub
Typora	Plain .md files	Windows, Mac, Linux	No	No
iA Writer	Plain text files with markdown	Mac, Windows	Yes	No
Zettlr	Plain .md files	Windows, Mac, Linux	No	No
VS Code with Foam	Plain .md files	Windows, Mac, Linux	No	No
Joplin	Local SQLite database	Windows, Mac, Linux, terminal, web	Yes	Yes
Bear	The app’s database	Mac, plus Bear Web in beta	Yes	No
Ulysses	The Ulysses library	Mac	Yes	No
Notesnook	The app’s database	Windows, Mac, Linux, web	Yes	Yes
Standard Notes	The app’s database	Windows, Mac, Linux, web	Yes	Yes

What you pay and what protects your notes in transit:

App	App price	Built-in sync	End-to-end encrypted sync	Open source
Jotura	Free	£4 or $5 a month, £40 or $50 a year, no free trial	Yes	No
Obsidian	Free, for any use	$4 a month billed annually, or $5 monthly	Yes	No
Logseq	Free	Beta access for Open Collective backers from $5 a month, no public price	Yes, in 2.0	Yes, AGPL-3.0
Typora	$14.99 once, 3 devices	None	No sync	No
iA Writer	$49.99 Mac, $29.99 Windows, $49.99 iPhone and iPad	None, uses your file sync	No sync	No
Zettlr	Free	None	No sync	Yes, GPL-3.0
VS Code with Foam	Free	None, Git is the usual route	No sync	Foam is MIT
Joplin	Free	Free over your own storage, or Joplin Cloud from €2.99 a month	Yes, switched on by you	Yes, AGPL-3.0-or-later
Bear	Free on one device	Bear Pro, $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year	Only with Apple’s Advanced Data Protection, titles and tags excluded	No
Ulysses	$5.99 a month or $39.99 a year	Included, through iCloud	Not documented by Ulysses	No
Notesnook	Free	Free, paid plans from $1.67 a month	Yes	Apps GPL-3.0, server AGPL-3.0
Standard Notes	Free, plain text only with no markdown	Free; markdown needs Productivity at $90 a year	Yes	Yes, AGPL-3.0

Apps that keep your notes as plain files

Here a folder of markdown files is the live copy. Syncthing, Git and any text editor work on it directly, and switching apps means opening the same folder in a new one.

Jotura

Its strengths and gaps are listed above, and two details matter for comparing it with Obsidian. Jotura shares a single folder or note, with a viewer role for read-only access, while Obsidian Sync shares whole vaults with up to 20 collaborators, each subscribed. Jotura keeps three years of version history, against twelve months on Obsidian Sync Plus.

Prices are on the pricing page, and Obsidian users can start with coming from Obsidian.

Obsidian

Obsidian stores notes as markdown files in a local folder it calls a vault, and it runs on every major desktop and phone. Its license makes it free for any purpose, work included, and the $50 per user per year commercial license is optional. Browser extensions handle web clipping.

Plugins and an open API let one person run a journal and another a research database in the same app. A graph view and Canvas, an infinite board for laying out notes, come built in. Its community is the largest here.

Obsidian Sync is end-to-end encrypted. Standard costs $4 a month billed annually or $5 monthly, for one vault, 1 GB, files up to 5 MB and a month of version history. Plus costs $8 a month billed annually or $10 monthly, for ten vaults, 10 GB, files up to 200 MB and twelve months of history. Publish, which turns a vault into a website, is $8 a month per site billed annually.

Where it falls short: the code is closed source, and free sync to an iPhone runs only through iCloud. Each community plugin is third-party code you decide to trust.

Logseq

Logseq is an AGPL-3.0 outliner. You write in nested bullets, and any single bullet can appear inside another page, staying live as the original changes. Journals are the default view, with plugins, themes, flashcards and a Datalog query language alongside.

This year Logseq became two products. Logseq OG is the file-based app, still reading markdown and Org-mode files, and the team’s April 2026 announcement commits it to security fixes and dependency upgrades with no new features. The new Logseq reached beta with 2.0.1 on July 13, 2026 and 2.0.2 on October 7. It keeps your graph in a local SQLite database, and its README warns that data loss is possible in the beta.

Logseq 2.0 runs on the desktop, in the browser at app.logseq.com and as an Android APK from GitHub, with the iPhone app in TestFlight pending App Store review. Its sync is end-to-end encrypted and open to Open Collective backers from $5 a month while it is in alpha. The Jotura vs Logseq page shows how an OG graph reads in other editors.

Where it falls short: long documents sit awkwardly in an outliner, and the storage model is in flux. OG is files and 2.0 is a database, so pick one deliberately.

Typora

Typora costs $14.99 once for up to three devices, after a 15-day trial. It opens one .md file at a time and renders markdown as you type, so the syntax folds into formatted text. It exports PDF and HTML, plus Word, EPUB and LaTeX through Pandoc.

There is no account and no second payment, and the editor has years of polish. Typora suits a writer who works on one document at a time.

Where it falls short: it has no sync, no mobile app and no wikilinks. A file syncer such as Dropbox handles the copying, and simultaneous edits on two machines produce duplicate files. It is closed source.

iA Writer

iA Writer edits plain text files written in markdown, with almost no interface around the text. Focus mode fades all but the current sentence or paragraph. Style check flags clichés and filler, and authorship tracking colors what you typed, pasted or got from AI. Sync rides whatever file service you already use.

Prices are one time and per platform: $49.99 on Mac, $29.99 on Windows and $49.99 on iPhone and iPad, with a 7-day trial on Mac and Windows. iA says a purchase covers the current version, so a future major version can cost again.

iA removed its Android app from sale in September 2024, and its Android FAQ calls the remaining copies unsupported. Older roundups that list it are out of date.

Where it falls short: there is no Android or Linux app, and it is built for essays and articles more than a linked knowledge base.

Zettlr

Zettlr is free under the GPL-3.0, at version 4.8.0 since September 2026, on Windows, Mac and Linux. Files stay in folders you choose. It reads citation libraries from Zotero, JabRef and Juris-M, formats references in more than 9,000 styles, and exports through Pandoc to the formats journals and publishers ask for.

Where it falls short: there is no sync and no phone app, and its feature set suits academic and long-form writing more than quick everyday notes.

VS Code with Foam, or Zed

Foam is a free, MIT-licensed VS Code extension. It adds wikilinks, a backlinks panel, a graph view, daily notes, templates and tags to a folder of markdown files, and a Git repository usually handles sync and history. Every keybinding, extension and Git habit a developer already has works on their notes.

Zed, a free code editor for Mac, Windows and Linux, edits and previews markdown well. Foam does not run in it.

Where it falls short: neither editor has a phone app, so notes from a phone come through a separate app writing into the same repository. Sync usually means Git.

Apps that keep your notes in their own store

Here the app’s own database holds the live copy, which gives it fast queries and revision history. Leaving means an export first.

Joplin

Joplin is AGPL-3.0-or-later, with apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone, a terminal client, and a web app that stores notes in your browser. It keeps notes in a local SQLite database, edits them as markdown or rich text, and exports markdown files. Plugins, themes and a web clipper come with it.

You choose where Joplin syncs. Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV and S3 all work for free, with end-to-end encryption you switch on. Joplin Cloud starts at €2.99 a month or €28.69 a year for 2 GB, with a 14-day trial, and its Pro plan adds notebook sharing. The “MD - Markdown + Front Matter” export keeps tags and dates.

Where it falls short: other tools cannot edit your notes in place, since the live copy sits in its database.

Bear

Bear runs on Mac, iPhone and iPad, with Bear Web in public beta. Markdown formats inline as you type, so headings and bold text show formatted while you write.

Bear Pro adds iCloud sync and OCR search inside PDFs and images, at $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year with a 7-day trial. Bear says sync is end-to-end encrypted when Apple’s Advanced Data Protection is on, with note titles and tag names left unencrypted even then. Bear Web does not work while Advanced Data Protection is on. The Jotura vs Bear page covers the trade for anyone with a Windows PC or an Android phone.

Where it falls short: there is no native app for Windows, Linux or Android, and free Bear stays on one device.

Ulysses

Ulysses is a writing app for Mac, iPad and iPhone, built for books, theses and blogs that run to many sheets. Texts live in its own library, synced through iCloud, and it publishes straight to WordPress, Ghost, Medium and Micro.blog. The subscription is $5.99 a month or $39.99 a year, and Family Sharing covers up to five other people.

Through External Folders, such as a Dropbox folder, Ulysses can also read and write markdown files. Its help pages list what that mode loses: no embedded local images, no attachments, and none of its comment or annotation markup. Ulysses does not document end-to-end encryption for its library, so its protection is whatever your iCloud account provides.

Where it falls short: it runs on Apple devices alone, and there is no free tier. A plain-files archive means External Folders and their limits.

Notesnook

Notesnook’s apps are GPL-3.0 and its sync server AGPL-3.0, with clients for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone and the web. Each note is encrypted on your device with XChaCha20-Poly1305, under a key derived from your password with Argon2, before it syncs. The editor is visual: markdown shortcuts format text as you type, and notes export as markdown.

The free plan includes encrypted sync on unlimited devices, capped at 50 MB of uploads a month, 10 MB per file and 50 notebooks. Paid plans start at $1.67 a month, with prices shown in your local currency. Self-hosting the sync server is still in alpha.

Where it falls short: the editor hides the markdown syntax, and notes reach other programs only by export.

Standard Notes

Standard Notes is AGPL-3.0, with apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Android and the browser, and a server you can self-host with Docker. Its free plan includes end-to-end encrypted sync on unlimited devices and daily encrypted email backups.

The free editor is plain text. Markdown, rich text and the Super editor come with Productivity at $90 a year, which also keeps a year of note history. Professional at $120 a year adds 100 GB of encrypted file storage.

Where it falls short: markdown needs the paid Productivity plan.

Sync costs and phone access

Built-in sync for one person and one vault, at each vendor’s published price:

Service	Price	Free alternative
Bear Pro	$29.99 a year	None, free Bear stays on one device
Jotura Sync	£40 or $50 a year	Any file sync between desktops; the Android app needs Jotura Sync
Joplin Cloud Basic	€28.69 a year	Sync over Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV or S3
Logseq	Beta access from $5 a month for backers	OG files work with any file sync
Notesnook	From $1.67 a month	The free plan includes encrypted sync
Obsidian Sync Standard	$48 a year	Any file sync the phone app accepts
Standard Notes Productivity	$90 a year	The free plan syncs plain text
Ulysses	$39.99 a year, the whole app	None

Free file sync for a plain-file app depends on which routes its phone app accepts:

App	iPhone	Android
Jotura	No app	Jotura Sync only
Obsidian	iCloud or Obsidian Sync	Obsidian Sync, Syncthing-Fork, or Google Drive with limits
Typora, Zettlr, VS Code with Foam	No app	No app

Obsidian’s own sync guide lists these routes and notes that community plugins fill some gaps unofficially. The guide to syncing markdown notes across devices compares the free routes in depth.

Also considered

App	Why it is not in the main list
NotePlan	Plain markdown files with a calendar and tasks, but Apple and web only, at $99 a year or $12 a month
Simplenote	Free on every platform with a markdown preview, though notes live in its own sync service and the feature set is minimal
Inkdrop	A developer notes app on every platform with its own encrypted sync, closed source, at $99.80 a year after a 30-day trial
MarkText	A free, MIT-licensed desktop editor, version 0.21.1 in October 2026, covering the same single-document ground as Typora
Notable	No release since version 1.8.4 in January 2020
SilverBullet	MIT-licensed markdown files in a folder, served from a server you host yourself and used in a browser

Frequently asked questions

What is the best markdown note app?

Our pick is Jotura: plain files on your disk, a visual editor, encrypted sync with sharing and three years of history, and a free app. We make it, and it has no iPhone app. Obsidian is the strongest choice for an iPhone user or anyone who relies on community plugins.

Which markdown note apps store notes as plain files?

Jotura, Obsidian, Typora, iA Writer, Zettlr, VS Code with Foam and Logseq OG keep each note as a plain markdown file in a folder on your disk. Jotura’s Android app is the exception among them, keeping a private vault filled by Jotura Sync. Logseq 2.0, Joplin, Bear, Ulysses, Notesnook and Standard Notes keep the live copy in a database and export markdown.

Which markdown note apps work on both iPhone and Android?

Obsidian, Joplin, Notesnook and Standard Notes have native apps on both, and so does Logseq OG. Logseq 2.0 has an Android APK and an iPhone app in TestFlight. Bear, Ulysses and iA Writer are iPhone only on mobile. Jotura has an Android app that gets desktop notes only through paid Jotura Sync, and Typora, Zettlr and Foam have no mobile app.

Is Logseq still a markdown app?

Logseq OG is, reading markdown and Org-mode files as before, with maintenance fixes only. Logseq 2.0, in beta since July 13, 2026, stores notes in a local SQLite database and exports markdown. The team says two-way markdown support for 2.0 is still being researched.

What is the best free markdown note app?

Jotura and Obsidian are both free with no account, and both keep plain files. Obsidian adds free routes to a phone through iCloud or Syncthing, while Jotura’s phone app needs paid Sync to receive desktop notes. Notesnook includes free encrypted sync across phones and computers, and so does Standard Notes, with free notes limited to plain text.

Is there an open source markdown note app with mobile apps?

Joplin, Notesnook, Standard Notes and Logseq are open source and run on iPhone and Android. Joplin is the closest to a full markdown editor of the four, and Logseq OG is the only one that keeps notes as files. Zettlr and Foam are open source and desktop only.