Joplin vs Nolio

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.

Nolio is a free, open-source notes app that stores encrypted notes locally, without cloud storage, third-party servers, or telemetry. Each note is encrypted with AES-256-GCM; key derivation uses Argon2id or a 600,000-iteration PBKDF2 fallback. The master password is essential: the maker says notes cannot be recovered without it and there is no password reset. The vault can lock after a configurable idle period or through Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + L. Its editor supports headings, lists, task lists, quotes, code blocks, callouts, tables, images, and links. Pasted Markdown is converted into rich blocks, and slash commands insert blocks from the keyboard. Notes can be organized into nested pages with unlimited subpages, alongside Favorites, Recent, All Notes, Trash, and a command palette. Desktop users can open resizable sticky-note windows and pin them above other windows. Encrypted backups can be exported to a chosen location, and imports verify the backup password before writing data. Nolio runs in a browser and on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android.