Comparison of Notetaking Software - General Features

General Features

Name Software license Cost Platforms Organizing principle(s) Tabbed sections Synchronizing PDF annotate, save Whiteboarding Keyboard text entry Write notes via pen-ink Handwriting Recognition Printing Formats Remarks
AllMyNotes Organizer Proprietary Freemium Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 tree No ? No No Yes No No Yes Proprietary, encrypted. Supports import from plain text, HTML, RTF, EverNote, KeyNote, CSV, images. Exports to plain text, html, rtf. Access restriction by password, alarms, tasks, icons, rich text, file attachments, outlining, portable, skins, multilingual, autobackup, capture text via tray icon, spell checker, auto-backups (history).
AudioNote - Notepad and Voice Recorder Proprietary Freemium Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista/7 ? No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Proprietary. Imports from plain text, images, PDF, audio. Exports to plain text, PDF, audio. Synchronized note-taking and audio recording.
BasKet Note Pads GPL Free Linux ? No No No Yes Yes No No No Rich text (export as HTML) Features adding, managing notes by category, importing text files, images, sounds, autosave.
Catch Notes Proprietary Freemium Android, iOS, and web-based Hashtags No Yes No No Yes Partial No Yes Text, photo and voice notes, export to CSV or HTML Passcode protection, reminders, spaces to share notes
CintaNotes Proprietary Freemium Windows tags No No No No Yes No No ? export to Unicode text or XML Tagging and searching for tags
Circus Ponies NoteBook Proprietary Commercial software Mac OS X indexing Yes ? Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Proprietary, export: html, opml, rtf, txt, doc, pdf Features adding, managing note entries, outlining, tabs, tagging, automatic indexing, audio recording, screen clipping, importing files (text, audio, video), link or embed files, etc.
DéjàClick Proprietary Commercial software Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows ? ? ? No No Yes ? ? Yes XML Features ability to annotate live web pages via DéjàNotes and share scripts. Notes may include rich text or HTML and can be printed and saved as a normal web page via the Firefox browser.
Emacs' org-mode GPL Free Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, Windows tree, tags Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No Yes LaTeX, HTML, DocBook, Taskjuggler, PDF, Freemind, XOXO, iCalendar
Evernote Proprietary Freemium Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista/7/Mobile/Phone 7, Palm Pre and web-based ? No Yes Yes No Yes Partial Yes Yes Notes stored as XML. Both Free and Paid version allows notes in any file type.
Gnote GPL v3 Free Linux ? No Yes Yes No Yes ? ? Yes NoteXmlFormat, HTML, PDF Port of Tomboy to C++, wiki-style linked notes
Jarnal GPL Free Any Java enabled platform: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows ? No Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial ? Yes ad-hoc (zip compatible archive containing an SVG per page, a config file, optional background PDFs/images). Can export to txt, html, jpg, pdf.
Keeppy Proprietary Free web-based ? No Yes No No Yes No No Yes HTML/JSON. Allows compiling notes into stories and share them
KeepNote GPL Free Cross platform (Python + GTK): Linux, Mac OS X, Windows tree ? No No No Yes No No No HTML/XML. Export to HTML. Notes are saves as HTML files. Organization is done via a file tree and XML.
KeyNote MPL Free Windows tree Yes ? ? ? Yes ? ? ?
KNote Creative commons Freeware Windows tags No Yes, with external tools Yes, with external tools No Yes No No Yes xml, can attach any files/folders. Support import from tiddlywiki and copy/paste with formats from browsers and Microsoft Word bank-grade encryption/password protection, one-click blogging, wiki links, WYSIWYG editor, portable, no installations are required.
m> notes notepad Proprietary Freemium Android Notebooks, sub-notes Yes No No No Yes No No Yes Text, photo, colors, icons, marks. Export via sharing Android function. Organize notes and sub-notes into colored notebooks. Add photos to notes from camera or gallery
Memonic Proprietary Freemium Android, iOS, Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista/7/Mobile web-based ? No Yes Yes No Yes No ? Yes Notes stored as XML. Can attach any filetype. Integrates into a number of different platforms.for free user only 100 notes supported.
Microsoft OneNote Proprietary Commercial software Android, iOS (iPad, iPhone), Symbian, Windows XP/Vista/7/Mobile/Phone 7, web-based, mobile web ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Proprietary Supports inserting images, audio and video-recording, screen clipping and drawings. Supports importing from web pages or any Windows application by means of a virtual printer. Supports attaching files of any types to the note, similar to email attachments. Can search text, audio, pictures and handwritten input in Microsoft Tablet PCs. Files can by synchronized to multiple desktop PCs, laptops, mobile phone, a Windows Live SkyDrive account or to a SharePoint site.
MyInfo Proprietary Commercial software Windows XP/Vista/7 ? Yes No Yes No Yes No No Yes Proprietary, encrypted. Supports import from plain text, RTF, CSV, Ms Word, images. Exports to plain text, HTML, RTF, CSV, Ms Word. Spell-checking, text styles, search in multiple files, import web pages, tags, filters, calendar, reminders, attachments.
MyNotex GPL Free Linux ? ? Yes No No Yes No No No Sqlite based, zipped attachments, export to HTML, copying as LaTeX Features text formatting, file attachments, tagging, searching, notes management by subject, encryption with AES algorithm, text files and OpenOffice.org documents import. Multilingual.
Notational Velocity GPL v3 Free Mac OS X ? No Yes No No Yes No No Yes TXT, RTF Instant open and searching. Plain and RTF text only. Sync via dropbox, etc. or via SimpleNote service
Notee LGPL Free Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista/7, web-based ? ? Yes ? ? Yes ? ? ? HTML Simple and easy to use
Notizen .NET Free Windows XP/Vista/7 tree No No No No Yes No No No TXT (ansi/unicode), RTF, ALX Tree Notes can stick on the desktop, Encryption, FTP-Updoad
Okular GPL Free Linux, Unix ? ? No Yes No Yes No No Yes PDF, PS, TIFF, CHM, DjVu, DVI, XPS, ODF, various others Can export PDF + notes, for sending to other Okular users
PDF Studio Proprietary Commercial software Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, web-based ? ? ? Yes No Yes ? ? Yes PDF Review and markup PDF documents.
Personal Knowbase Proprietary Commercial software Windows tags ? ? No No Yes ? ? Yes export to RTF, HTML, TXT, CSV Supports tags, hypertext, attachments, passwords. Portable.
PDF Studio Proprietary Commercial software Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, web-based ? ? ? Yes No Yes ? ? Yes PDF Review and markup PDF documents.
Qiqqa Proprietary Freemium Windows XP/Vista/7 tags, brainstorm No Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes Proprietary, PDF, Brainstorm Export all notes and annotations to RTF, Word or Brainstorm.
SilverNote Proprietary Freemium Windows XP/Vista/7 tags Yes ? No No Yes No No Yes HTML, SVG Drawing/sketching, web clipping, screen capturing, file attachments, encryption
TiddlyWiki BSD Free Cross-platform (browser, web-based) tags (wikiwords) Via plugin Yes Via plugin No Yes ? ? Yes HTML extensible via plugins and user scripts
Tomboy LGPL Free Cross-platform ? ? Yes No No Yes ? ? Yes NoteXmlFormat, HTML, PDF, wiki-formats Reminders, to do-lists, formulae in LaTeX
TreeDBNotes Proprietary Freemium Microsoft Windows tree Yes ? ? ? Yes No No Yes RTF, HTML, txt tree-structured organizer
WikidPad BSD Free Cross-platform tags (wikiwords) No No No No Yes No No Yes HTML personal wiki software
Windows Journal Proprietary Commercial software Windows XP Tablet PC edition, Windows Vista, Windows 7 ? No ? No ? Yes Yes Yes Yes Proprietary
XLnotes Proprietary Commercial software Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 free form Yes No No No Yes Yes No Yes Stores notes inside Microsoft Excel workbook Microsoft Excel add-in that allows to create notes which contain Word documents, web pages and attachmens
Xournal GPL Free Linux, Windows, Mac OS X ? No No Yes No Yes Yes No Yes XML, export to PDF
Zim GPL Free Cross-platform tags (wikiwords) No No No No Yes No No Yes, using installed web browser wiki text, LaTeX
Name Software license Cost Platforms Organizing principle(s) Tabbed sections Synchronizing PDF annotate, save Whiteboarding Keyboard text entry Write notes via pen-ink Handwriting Recognition Printing Formats Remarks

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