Joplin vs Kilonotes

Joplin is an open-source note-taking app with offline access and support for notes containing images, videos, PDFs and audio. It runs on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux and the web, with a Chrome extension and API also listed. A web clipper for Chrome and Firefox saves pages or screenshots as notes. Notes can sync through Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, S3, WebDAV or a local filesystem. Joplin uses end-to-end encryption, and shared notebooks can be set to editable or read-only. Basic costs €2.99 a month, with 2 GB of storage and a 10 MB limit per note or attachment. Pro costs €5.99 a month for 30 GB and a 200 MB per-note or attachment limit; Pro 100 GB costs €9.99 a month. Teams costs €7.99 a month per user, with a minimum of two users, and includes 50 GB of storage. Plans include a 14-day free trial. Students and teachers can receive a 50% discount for one year, renewable while in education.

Kilonotes is a handwriting notes app for students, combining note-taking with tools for turning lectures, PDFs, and recordings into study material. Its writing features include pressure sensitivity, palm rejection, and low-latency ink, with handwriting-to-text conversion that recognizes math equations. Users can import and annotate PDFs, then search handwriting across notebooks. Kilonotes AI can explain notes, create practice questions and flashcards, summarize documents, and generate mind maps. The app can record and transcribe audio, then produce summaries and key points. Core note-taking works offline; AI tasks wait for a connection if the device is offline. The Free plan includes five notebooks and basic AI, with trial uses of AI features before AI credits are needed. Premium adds unlimited notebooks, full AI, custom fonts, page styles, and other advanced features. The maker’s plans page does not show paid prices, though App Store listings show selected plan prices. The app is listed for iOS and Android, with Android 12 or later required on Android.