Bike Outliner vs TreeLine

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.

TreeLine is a free, offline information organizer for Linux, Windows, and macOS. It stores records in a tree, with fields on each node acting like a small database. Fields can contain plain or rich text, HTML, numbers, dates, times, booleans, and URLs. One file can hold several node types, each with its own fields and formatting. Search commands find node data, while filters present matching nodes in a flat view. Node output can appear on screen, be printed, or be exported to HTML. Files use JSON and may be compressed or encrypted automatically. Import and export cover plain text, delimited tables, older TreeLine files, Mozilla and XBEL bookmarks, generic XML, and ODF text outlines. Additional exports include CSV, PDF, tab-indented text, and TreeLine format. Windows installers target Windows 10 and 11. Linux installation requires Python 3.9 or newer, Qt 6.4 or newer, and PyQt 6.4 or newer. macOS is not formally supported; a third-party MacPorts version is suggested. The free plan is free under GNU GPL v2 or later.