Goodnotes vs QOwnNotes

Goodnotes is a note-taking app from Goodnotes, a company founded in 2011 and based in London. It runs on Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows, with offline access, note sharing, and real-time collaboration. Listed integrations include Google Calendar, Google Drive, ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple Calendar. The Free plan costs nothing and includes three notebooks, three text documents, three whiteboards, three folders, 100 MB of storage, and a 5 MB import limit. Essential costs $11.99 a year and includes 5 GB of storage and unlimited files, with a 7-day free trial. Pro costs $35.99 a year and includes unlimited files, also with a 7-day trial. Teams costs $120 a year and adds collaboration, SAML SSO, domain control, consolidated billing, and user and admin management. AI Pass is a $9.99 a month add-on with approximately 6,300 additional AI credits per month; availability varies by region and eligible plan. Enterprise and Special Edition have no listed prices.

QOwnNotes is a free, GPL-licensed note-taking application built around plain-text Markdown files. Notes stay in a folder on your computer, and the app does not sync notes or media itself; you can choose a separate sync client such as Nextcloud or ownCloud. Those services can also provide note sharing, task lists, note history, and access to trashed notes. The editor offers Markdown highlighting and preview, hierarchical tags and subfolders, wiki-style links, Vim mode, and portable mode. Optional encryption includes built-in AES-256 and custom methods such as PGP. You can import from Evernote or Joplin, or work with existing text and Markdown files directly. QOwnNotes is available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, and the web, with a browser extension for clipping selected text, screenshots, and bookmarks. A web companion sends phone photos to the current desktop note. Integrations include Nextcloud, ownCloud, Dropbox, Syncthing, Seafile, CalDAV, and Git. The software is open source, with no paid plans stated.