Obsidian is a local-first Markdown note-taking app developed by a Canadian team. The core app is free and it is known for bidirectional links and the knowledge graph. With 1000+ community plugins and paid Sync/Publish add-ons, it is a popular choice for personal knowledge management and a second brain.
Notion is an all-in-one workspace from San Francisco, combining notes, databases, wikis and project management with over 100 million users. A free plan is available, Plus costs about $10 per member per month, and it is a popular choice for personal and team knowledge management.
Atlassian is an enterprise software company founded in Sydney, Australia in 2002, whose Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket and Trello serve 250,000+ enterprise customers across project management, knowledge management and DevOps.
Zenkit is a multi-view project management platform founded in Germany in 2014, blending database capabilities with 5 views including Kanban and Gantt. It connects 1500+ third-party tools via Zapier and stores data on German servers in line with GDPR.
WorkFlowy is an infinite-level outliner released in 2010 by a US team, known for Zoom focus and minimalist text. The free plan offers limited nodes and Pro costs about $4.99-9.99 per month, making it a pioneer of outline-based thinking.
Trilium Notes was created in 2018 by Czech developer Adam P., an AGPLv3 open-source, self-hosted hierarchical note app. Unlimited hierarchical trees, relation maps, script extensions, and end-to-end encrypted sync suit personal knowledge management users with high privacy requirements.
Tana is a new-generation structured AI note-taking and knowledge management tool from San Francisco, launched in beta in 2023, built around Supertags and Tana AI. It offers a free plan with subscriptions around $10-15/month for structured personal knowledge bases.
Slite is a team knowledge base and document collaboration tool founded in Paris, France in 2015, known for its simple editor and AI Q&A, positioned as a "lightweight Notion". A free plan is available, Pro costs about $8 per member per month, and it suits small and mid-size teams consolidating knowledge.
Reflect is an AI-powered, end-to-end encrypted notes app combining Daily Notes, bidirectional links, and built-in AI summaries and Q&A at about $10/month, an Obsidian-style choice for privacy-conscious users.
Nimbus Note is a feature-rich note and team knowledge base app supporting web clipping, PDF annotation, nested documents, and kanban boards, with a free plan for personal knowledge management and team collaboration.
Mem is an AI-first note and knowledge management tool founded by a US team in 2020, fully rebuilt with Mem 2.0 in 2023, supporting auto-organization, Mem Chat, and AI search, a representative product in the AI note-taking space.
Joplin is an open-source note and to-do app initiated in 2016 by French developer Laurent Cozic, supporting Markdown, end-to-end encryption and multi-platform sync with data servers in Paris, France (GDPR), 45,000+ GitHub stars, and optional Joplin Cloud from EUR 2.99/month.
Foam is a free, open-source personal knowledge management tool built on VS Code, using local Markdown files and bidirectional links to build a knowledge graph, completely free under the MIT license, suited to technical users familiar with VS Code and Git.
Dropbox Paper is the real-time collaborative document tool from Dropbox, launched in 2015, offering rich media embedding, task assignment, and version history, usable from the free Basic tier ($0) for lightweight document collaboration and knowledge capture.
Craft is a modern document and knowledge base tool by Luki Labs, native on macOS, iOS and iPadOS with a web version. It is usable on the free plan with Pro from $4.99/user/mo, combining card-based editing, Markdown and Craft AI for personal and team knowledge management.
Capacities is an object-based personal knowledge management tool from a German team, launched in 2019, organizing notes, people, projects, and ideas as objects; the free plan offers unlimited objects, and Pro unlocks calendar and backlink views for about €10/month.
Anytype is a local-first, offline-capable open-source knowledge management platform featuring end-to-end encryption and an object-relationship model, currently free, ideal for privacy- and data-sovereignty-focused users.
Amplenote is an all-in-one notes, tasks, and calendar productivity tool known for nested tags and bullet journal style, with a free tier and paid plans around $8/month, ideal for time-focused knowledge workers.
Bear is an Apple-ecosystem Markdown notes app from Italian developer Shiny Frog, winner of the 2017 Apple Design Award, known for minimalist design and nested tags, with Pro at about $29.99/year.
Evernote is a veteran cross-platform note app released in 2008, headquartered in Redwood City, USA, with over 200 million peak users; acquired by Bending Spoons in 2022, it underwent a performance rebuild and introduced AI features, with a 60MB monthly upload limit on the free plan.