What a coincidence, was just looking for a replacement of Simplenote!
With hundreds of note taking apps coming and going, is there any single performant cross-platform non-Electron app with great conflict resolution for simple notes? Just to be more useful than an overpowered code editor + a file cloud?
Checked just 2 of these conditions here (native Windows and macOS and some iOS startup benchmarks) and there is literally not a single app!!! (to be fair, not every app is likely tested, but even without those it's 6 apps)
Obsidian is great and highly performant, even though it's using Electron. Electron is a huge advantage, faster development and the option to customise it easily with plugins.
It's not highly performant, its startup time is a multiple of that of native apps. Nothing is easy about plugins, APIs you expose/maintain define that, not Electron, and those can be good/bad in any system. Electron gives easier access to UI styling, but then again, real "easily" comes from the structure/stability of your UI, otherwise your plugins would break all the time. Also, same as with APIs - e.g, Joplin is Electron, but you can only style on a desktop. Then, of course, there are plenty of Electron apps that you can't style at all and that don't support plugins.
I'm happy for devs' "faster development", but as a user I care about "faster use", which Electron blocks outright
Startup time in Obsidian could be better (we're working on it!), but performance is more than startup time. It's making interactions fast throughout the entire app. Obsidian is only three developers but we spend a lot of time shaving off milliseconds everywhere we can. Keystrokes, scrolling, querying, navigating large vaults, opening and parsing large Markdown files, etc.
In 2025 we made reduced startup time on mobile under 0.5s (used to be several seconds), made search nearly instantaneous and released Bases to make complex queries equally fast (much faster than Dataview and other pre-existing solutions).
Thank you for this work! I had tried Obsidian every year or so and the performance switching/opening notes drove me crazy in the past. I like it to feel instant and I'm more sensitive to UI performance than others. Just tried again, and it passes the threshold for me!
I use Ticktick for my Markdown notes and todos. I can add tasks from my lockscreen. I have a single view of notes and tasks. Costs me 5 biriyanis per year, yes its localized pricing.
Been meaning to switch to an open source app out of principle, one which can handle rich notes too.
I don't think even Simplenote was native on Windows (despite what noteapps.info says), there is no simplenote-windows repo and all signs point to simplenote-electron
Works well on all paltforms, desktop and mobile. The sync works also great. It also backs up to text files on your computer, so that you can back up your files with your regular backup process and you can also easily move away if you would like to one day.
Standard Notes is in the same position as Simplenote was 10 years ago. Automattic acquired Simplenote but never really did anything with it. Standard Notes was acquired by Proton last year and development has slowed to bug fixes only. I would be wary to migrate to Standard Notes.
That‘s the notetaking app that has several "editors", isn‘t it?
So that if you want to use feature A you need a different view inside the app than if you want to use feature B. And if you use both, you constantly switch?
The illustrations on the home page are some of the most hideous slop I've ever seen. Terrible first impression, and it really doesn't inspire trust in the quality of security of the service. Eventually companies will learn. But for now, eww.
Wow, I thought you were exaggerating / being the usual AI hater, so I opened the page expecting a some product screenshots with a few too many em dashes or something like that, fully intending to tell you to calm down. But dammmn it's bad! You weren't exaggerating at all!
Wow, it is really awful. This is such a pointless misstep given that Standard Notes has been around for years, was not vibe coded, is not an AI app - but this landing page makes me immediately assume it’s slop.
GNU Emacs, which has been in active development for over 40 years, has a thriving note taking ecosystem based on Org-mode, a plaintext system for notes, documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, maintaining to-do lists, planning projects, and lots more. Ask your doctor if GNU Emacs is right for you.
Side effects may include: excessive online evangelism, endless configuration tinkering, pain and numbness in the pinkies, and smugness.
Joplin is quite good; I still keep it around for longer form writing. For everyday note taking I switched to logseq about a year ago. They're in a weird phase technically (in tye midst of a huge rewrite id the persistence layer) but it’s the first PKM app I’ve used that I’ve really gelled with.
Just use plain text files. Anything backed by a service is going to hurt over a long enough time frame. And it seems that time frame gets shorter every year.
I still use email drafts for a lot of notes. Looking at my email draft folder the oldest one I have is from 2002 and I can still access it just fine, even on mobile.
Isn't Simplenote partially (or maybe entirely?) opensource? Would've been nice if they'd linking to the repos if so, and perhaps put out a call for new maintainers rather than just archiving.
That’s a shame, though I do see that it is difficult to make any money from what it is. I’m glad they didn’t sell it to someone big for all the user’s data, though it is still early
It's owned by Automattic, isn't it? I assume they're simply keeping the lights on for whoever wants to use it.
For about a year I've noticed that it tends to quit on its own on my Mac. Whenever I need to look for a note I realize the app is inactive and I need to re-launch it. Then it works perfectly well, until somehow, at some point, it quits without me realizing.
It's sad that they're not fixing it, and that eventually it probably won't work with newer Mac OS and iOS versions. I should start looking for a way to migrate off of it.
It makes me miss the shareware era, back before races to the bottom and free corporate giant competition had all but eliminated any kind of profit margin on simple, but thoughtfully designed and well-built software.
How many of us have had ideas for little utilities and such that were never followed through on because the chances of even breaking even on them was so low? I know I have several.
That's sad! Simplenote is a really useful and quick note taking app that's minimal but not missing anything for this kind of app. It's like notational velocity but done in a clean way, and synchronizing across devices. For me it was really enough for many years.
PS. And there is this surprise when you discover that all notes are versioned.
Thats sad! For those looking to migrate out, I wrote this backup tool that pulls your note out of simplenote and uploads it to sqlite database. Hope this helps https://github.com/vivekhub/simplenote-backup
Wow thanks for posting this, this was how I found out about it being on life support. I've been using it since ages ago and have no complaints. It's lightweight, fast, accessible anywhere, no frills and functional. It's the notepad.exe on web for me.
None of the current line up of alternatives are lightweight enough, it seems.
It's been my go-to since 2009! That's longer than I had thought. It just did what it said on the sticker and has always been unobtrusive and respectful of the user when adding a few features every now and then. Thankful to have been able to use it for so long and without it getting enshitified like almost everything else.
I used to love nvALT. Want to check out https://hashy.ink. It's an open source markdown editor inspired by nvALT. Still rough around the edges, but it's coming together.
From Simplenote to Simplynot. I liked it, it was like a popular app on Gnome or KDE, but available on mobile devices. It was well designed and privacy respecting. However, the walled gardens are hostile to such apps.
What a coincidence, was just looking for a replacement of Simplenote!
With hundreds of note taking apps coming and going, is there any single performant cross-platform non-Electron app with great conflict resolution for simple notes? Just to be more useful than an overpowered code editor + a file cloud?
Checked just 2 of these conditions here (native Windows and macOS and some iOS startup benchmarks) and there is literally not a single app!!! (to be fair, not every app is likely tested, but even without those it's 6 apps)
https://noteapps.info/features?group=performance
Obsidian is great and highly performant, even though it's using Electron. Electron is a huge advantage, faster development and the option to customise it easily with plugins.
It's not highly performant, its startup time is a multiple of that of native apps. Nothing is easy about plugins, APIs you expose/maintain define that, not Electron, and those can be good/bad in any system. Electron gives easier access to UI styling, but then again, real "easily" comes from the structure/stability of your UI, otherwise your plugins would break all the time. Also, same as with APIs - e.g, Joplin is Electron, but you can only style on a desktop. Then, of course, there are plenty of Electron apps that you can't style at all and that don't support plugins.
I'm happy for devs' "faster development", but as a user I care about "faster use", which Electron blocks outright
Startup time in Obsidian could be better (we're working on it!), but performance is more than startup time. It's making interactions fast throughout the entire app. Obsidian is only three developers but we spend a lot of time shaving off milliseconds everywhere we can. Keystrokes, scrolling, querying, navigating large vaults, opening and parsing large Markdown files, etc.
In 2025 we made reduced startup time on mobile under 0.5s (used to be several seconds), made search nearly instantaneous and released Bases to make complex queries equally fast (much faster than Dataview and other pre-existing solutions).
I wrote a bunch more on this topic here:
https://x.com/kepano/status/2004008730720194759
Thank you for this work! I had tried Obsidian every year or so and the performance switching/opening notes drove me crazy in the past. I like it to feel instant and I'm more sensitive to UI performance than others. Just tried again, and it passes the threshold for me!
Obsidian just launched Obsidian CLI too, if that helps. And sync.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46961430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197267
I use Ticktick for my Markdown notes and todos. I can add tasks from my lockscreen. I have a single view of notes and tasks. Costs me 5 biriyanis per year, yes its localized pricing.
Been meaning to switch to an open source app out of principle, one which can handle rich notes too.
I should measure my expenses in biriyanis more.
I don't think even Simplenote was native on Windows (despite what noteapps.info says), there is no simplenote-windows repo and all signs point to simplenote-electron
yeah, unfortunately it was yet another Electron wrapper on Windows, though mobile/Mac (where it's more important) was native.
The website's idea is great, but unfortunately it's not comprehensive/reliable, otherwise finding an alternative would be much easier.
You could probably vibe code the perfect one for yourself at this point.
I can recommend Standard Notes as an alternative. https://standardnotes.com/
Works well on all paltforms, desktop and mobile. The sync works also great. It also backs up to text files on your computer, so that you can back up your files with your regular backup process and you can also easily move away if you would like to one day.
Standard Notes is in the same position as Simplenote was 10 years ago. Automattic acquired Simplenote but never really did anything with it. Standard Notes was acquired by Proton last year and development has slowed to bug fixes only. I would be wary to migrate to Standard Notes.
That‘s the notetaking app that has several "editors", isn‘t it?
So that if you want to use feature A you need a different view inside the app than if you want to use feature B. And if you use both, you constantly switch?
The illustrations on the home page are some of the most hideous slop I've ever seen. Terrible first impression, and it really doesn't inspire trust in the quality of security of the service. Eventually companies will learn. But for now, eww.
Wow, I thought you were exaggerating / being the usual AI hater, so I opened the page expecting a some product screenshots with a few too many em dashes or something like that, fully intending to tell you to calm down. But dammmn it's bad! You weren't exaggerating at all!
Its almost enjoyably bad - I especially appreciate how it gets worse as you scroll.
Do images of that low quality honestly help sell something? I'd have thought stock footage or simple icons would be more effective.
oh damn what i swear i remember their site being perfectly normal in the past, what happened
Weird. Although I only used it briefly in the past, I remember the home page was not that bad. What happened to them?
Wow, it is really awful. This is such a pointless misstep given that Standard Notes has been around for years, was not vibe coded, is not an AI app - but this landing page makes me immediately assume it’s slop.
GNU Emacs, which has been in active development for over 40 years, has a thriving note taking ecosystem based on Org-mode, a plaintext system for notes, documents, computational notebooks, literate programming, maintaining to-do lists, planning projects, and lots more. Ask your doctor if GNU Emacs is right for you.
Side effects may include: excessive online evangelism, endless configuration tinkering, pain and numbness in the pinkies, and smugness.
I‘m pretty happy with a self hosted Joplin.
Markdown, cross platform and good support for todo lists.
Joplin is quite good; I still keep it around for longer form writing. For everyday note taking I switched to logseq about a year ago. They're in a weird phase technically (in tye midst of a huge rewrite id the persistence layer) but it’s the first PKM app I’ve used that I’ve really gelled with.
I'm working on a open source markdown editor inspired by nvALT. Would love feedback! https://hashy.ink
Doesn't open for me.
Oh really weird.
https://github.com/polka-computer/Hashy
why no linux version ?
Ya I made it with swift using ST Text View. Would love a Linux version as I just bought a Linux to use on the side. So we will see heh
It’s built with SwiftUI, which is not really cross-platform.
Just use plain text files. Anything backed by a service is going to hurt over a long enough time frame. And it seems that time frame gets shorter every year.
I still use email drafts for a lot of notes. Looking at my email draft folder the oldest one I have is from 2002 and I can still access it just fine, even on mobile.
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Isn't Simplenote partially (or maybe entirely?) opensource? Would've been nice if they'd linking to the repos if so, and perhaps put out a call for new maintainers rather than just archiving.
The clients are open source but the server is not.
That’s a shame, though I do see that it is difficult to make any money from what it is. I’m glad they didn’t sell it to someone big for all the user’s data, though it is still early
It's owned by Automattic, isn't it? I assume they're simply keeping the lights on for whoever wants to use it.
For about a year I've noticed that it tends to quit on its own on my Mac. Whenever I need to look for a note I realize the app is inactive and I need to re-launch it. Then it works perfectly well, until somehow, at some point, it quits without me realizing.
It's sad that they're not fixing it, and that eventually it probably won't work with newer Mac OS and iOS versions. I should start looking for a way to migrate off of it.
It makes me miss the shareware era, back before races to the bottom and free corporate giant competition had all but eliminated any kind of profit margin on simple, but thoughtfully designed and well-built software.
How many of us have had ideas for little utilities and such that were never followed through on because the chances of even breaking even on them was so low? I know I have several.
it is owned by Automattic
That's sad! Simplenote is a really useful and quick note taking app that's minimal but not missing anything for this kind of app. It's like notational velocity but done in a clean way, and synchronizing across devices. For me it was really enough for many years.
PS. And there is this surprise when you discover that all notes are versioned.
Thats sad! For those looking to migrate out, I wrote this backup tool that pulls your note out of simplenote and uploads it to sqlite database. Hope this helps https://github.com/vivekhub/simplenote-backup
Wow thanks for posting this, this was how I found out about it being on life support. I've been using it since ages ago and have no complaints. It's lightweight, fast, accessible anywhere, no frills and functional. It's the notepad.exe on web for me.
None of the current line up of alternatives are lightweight enough, it seems.
It's been my go-to since 2009! That's longer than I had thought. It just did what it said on the sticker and has always been unobtrusive and respectful of the user when adding a few features every now and then. Thankful to have been able to use it for so long and without it getting enshitified like almost everything else.
I still lament the loss of nvALT. The GOAT.
Mine is still coughing along on Ventura. I'm more upset about the one-decade-in-beta, almost-certain-never-to-be-released, quasi-vaporware nvULTRA.
I used to love nvALT. Want to check out https://hashy.ink. It's an open source markdown editor inspired by nvALT. Still rough around the edges, but it's coming together.
Lost me in the first sentence with the AI chat.
You can just use neovim with fzf and that pretty much replicates nvALT.
From Simplenote to Simplynot. I liked it, it was like a popular app on Gnome or KDE, but available on mobile devices. It was well designed and privacy respecting. However, the walled gardens are hostile to such apps.
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ai slop ass comment