Open-source Samsung Notes alternatives

Joplin is a note-taking and to-do application, free and open source, that can manage large collections of notes organized into notebooks. Notes are written in Markdown, are searchable, can be tagged, and can be edited either in the app or in your own text editor. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.

The app is offline first, so all your data lives on your phone or computer and stays accessible without a connection. Notes can be synchronized with end-to-end encryption through services such as Nextcloud, Dropbox, OneDrive and Joplin Cloud, and topics also mention WebDAV. Full-text search is available on every platform, and plugins and themes let you customize the app. A web clipper saves pages, and notes exported from Evernote can be imported with formatting, attachments and metadata intact; plain Markdown files can be imported as well.

The repository license is listed as 'Other', so check its terms if you plan to redistribute. Joplin is a popular choice for people who want an Evernote replacement that keeps data local or on storage they already control.

Notesnook is a note-taking app that puts privacy first. Everything is encrypted on your device with XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2 before it syncs, following zero-knowledge principles, and the whole thing is open source. It is presented as an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Evernote, aiming to show that privacy does not have to cost convenience.

The repository contains all the code needed to build and use the web, desktop and mobile clients. They are built mainly with TypeScript and React, with Electron for desktop and React Native for mobile, and parts of the code base are still being ported from JavaScript. A server component written with .NET appears in the topics. The website covers the full feature list, roadmap and downloads, and the team encourages community involvement through Discord.

Notesnook is licensed under GPL-3.0. A hosted sync service is operated by the company behind it, and the open-source code lets you inspect how encryption is handled. It suits people moving away from Evernote or other cloud notes who want strong encryption and cross-platform apps.

Butterfly is an open-source app for people who think better with space around their ideas. Instead of a fixed page, you get an endless workspace where notes, sketches, diagrams, images, and documents can be placed wherever they make sense. It is built with Flutter and released under the AGPL-3.0 license.

You can write by hand with a stylus, touch, or mouse, type text with Markdown, and mix in diagrams and imported documents. The README suggests uses such as class notes, meeting notes, research, math, worksheets, planning, whiteboarding, storyboards, and product sketches. Topics list Android, Linux, Windows, and web builds, and describe it as customizable and a OneNote alternative.

The project is run by Linwood and invites translations through Crowdin, with community spaces on Matrix, Discord, Mastodon, and Bluesky. It suits students, teachers, and visual thinkers who want a flexible digital notebook that keeps their canvas under their own control.

NotallyX, published under the Crustack account, is a minimalistic note-taking app for Android that extends the original Notally app. It lets you write rich text notes with bold, italics, monospace and strike-through, and create task lists with subtasks and automatic sorting of checked items to the end.

Further features include reminders with notifications, attachments of pictures, PDFs and other files, sorting by title or date, colors, pins and labels, clickable links for phone numbers, emails and URLs, undo and redo, a home screen widget, locking by biometrics or PIN, configurable auto-backups, quick audio notes and list or grid views. Notes can be imported from Evernote, Google Keep and Quillpad.

The developer notes that the app was temporarily removed from the Google Play Store after users reported data loss, and strongly advises setting up automatic backups, ideally also backup on save. It is written in Kotlin, licensed under GPL-3.0, supports Android Lollipop and up, and has occasional beta releases.

Noto is a minimalistic, free and open-source note-taking application with privacy in mind. Its author describes it as part of his portfolio and as a response to note apps that do the basics poorly. The app is ad-free and stores all data locally on the device.

Notes live in colorful folders that can be pinned, archived or locked in a vault, with sorting by name, date or manual order and a folders widget. Notes support auto-save, undo and redo with history, reminders, pinning, merging, copying, moving and duplicating, list and grid layouts, labels, search, word count and a notes widget. Themes include light, dark, black and system, plus Material You.

The APK is small, at around 5 MB, supports Android 5.0 (API 21) and later, and is translated into more than a dozen languages including English, Turkish, Arabic and German. It is written in Kotlin with Compose, licensed under Apache-2.0 and available from Google Play and other download links.