Bike Outliner vs CrossLine

Bike Outliner is a macOS app for thinking, writing, organizing lists, notes, and documents. Its outlines support headings, ordered lists, task lists, and other row types, while a rich text editor handles formatting. Full-screen, typewriter, and focus modes provide distraction-free writing. Navigation includes keyboard movement by focus heading, back and forward controls, breadcrumbs, inline buttons, and a navigation bar. Deep links remain valid when an outline file is moved or renamed. Bike uses an HTML-based .bike format and also supports .opml and .txt files, with Markdown support, printing, Quick Look previews, and Finder thumbnails. Scripts, Shortcuts, and AppleScript can control the app. Free mode never expires and covers reading, writing, and editing outlines; additional row types, rich text formatting, Shortcut Actions, and AppleScript require purchase.

CrossLine is a free, open-source outliner for Windows, Linux, and macOS. It arranges text as parent, child, and subtopic nodes that can be collapsed or expanded, and supports cross-links and Ted Nelson’s transclusion concept. CrossLine also works as a full-text database with a built-in search engine; Lucene can be added as an optional alternative when building the application. Navigation includes search, history, and back/forward controls, with backlinks supported. HTML and CLDX are listed export formats. Precompiled downloads cover Windows and Linux in x86 and x64 versions, plus Mac x64 and M1. The compressed executable can be unpacked and run without installation or special privileges. The README says the Windows build runs on Windows 7 without a separate Microsoft runtime. On Mac, startup requires the context menu’s open command. The project links to a demo repository, provides source-build instructions using LeanQt, and directs support questions to GitHub issues or email. Licenses listed are GPL-2.0 and GPL-3.0.