Bike Outliner vs Dynalist

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.

Dynalist is an outlining app for capturing ideas and developing them into plans, projects, brainstorms, or notes. Users can nest outline items and documents without a stated depth limit, turn lists into checklists, and add dates that can be filtered by date and time. Tags, sorting, and links between items help organize content; search, flat search, item finder, bookmarks, and folding provide navigation options. Dynalist supports Markdown, backlinks, and real-time collaboration, and exports content as formatted HTML, plain text, or OPML. File attachments can be up to 50 MB. Offline work is available through the desktop app. The Free plan costs nothing and includes unlimited items and documents, five bookmarks, and community support. Pro adds unlimited bookmarks, Google Calendar integration, daily backups to Dropbox or Google Drive, and priority email support. The pricing note lists a 14-day trial and an annual starting rate of $7.99/user/mo; Pro is also listed at $9.99 a month billed monthly. Dynalist runs on web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.