By device
Best cross-platform note-taking apps
If you use a work Windows machine, a personal Mac and a phone that is neither, the shortlist collapses fast. These are the apps that are genuinely the same product everywhere.
Top pick: Grape, at 8.8 out of 10 on this ranking. The most AI you can point at your own notes while keeping them on your own machine. Young, and it shows in the missing web app and in sharing that stops at email invites, but the study tools, the $9 AI plan and the lifetime license make it hard to ignore.
What we weighted
Four platforms, one app
Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, all maintained, all current.
Sync that does not lose things
Conflicts handled quietly, edits landing in seconds.
A way out
Export, because the whole point is not being locked to one vendor.
Every app keeps its site-wide score, but the order here is a separate fit reading built from those three needs, so it is not the same list you get on the home page.
Grape
Take the note. The AI does the filing, the studying and the searching.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Students and individual note-takers who want AI over their own notes, kept on their own device, and who now and then share a folder with a classmate or a colleague.
Fit
9.0 overall
$3/mo
Obsidian
Plain markdown files on your disk, with a plugin ecosystem bolted on top.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Long-term thinkers who want to own the files and are willing to tinker.
Fit
8.4 overall
$4/mo
Joplin
Open source, end-to-end encrypted, and it syncs wherever you tell it to.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Privacy-minded people leaving Evernote who want to control the storage.
Fit
7.5 overall
$3/mo
Notesnook
Zero-knowledge encryption without giving up a modern editor.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
People who want Evernote-style notes with Signal-style privacy.
Fit
7.2 overall
$4.49/mo
Amplenote
Notes and tasks that argue with each other until your day is planned.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
People who want their notes to produce a daily plan.
Fit
7.5 overall
$7.99/mo
Anytype
Notion-shaped, but the data is encrypted and lives on your machine.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
People who want a Notion-style workspace without the cloud.
Fit
7.4 overall
$99/yr
Day One
A journal that has been quietly perfecting one job since 2011.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Anyone keeping a personal journal who wants it to outlive the app.
Fit
7.7 overall
$49.99/yr
Standard Notes
Encrypted first, everything else second. Now part of Proton.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Anyone whose first requirement is that nobody else can read their notes.
Fit
6.6 overall
$8/mo
Craft
Documents that look designed before you touch anything.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
People who share their notes and want them to look good.
Fit
8.1 overall
$10/mo
Heptabase
Notes on whiteboards, for when the outline is not the shape of the idea.
For every device: Cloud sync, Offline support, Export.
Researchers and students mapping a subject they do not understand yet.
Fit
7.8 overall
$11.99/mo
Questions every device ask
- Which note app syncs best across devices?
- Notion and Evernote are the most reliable in practice because sync is a server product they have run for years. Obsidian Sync is excellent and costs extra, and iCloud only helps inside Apple.
- What if I switch phones later?
- Pick an app with a real export before you need one. Markdown or a documented format means a platform change is an afternoon, not a rebuild.
Keep looking
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