Notesnook Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Notesnook is an open source, end-to-end encrypted note app for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and the web. The free tier is unusually generous and the encryption is real rather than marketing copy. Best for: privacy-minded writers and journalers who want zero-knowledge sync. Price: free plan, Essential $1.99/mo. Rating: 8.4/10.

What is Notesnook?

Notesnook is a note-taking app built on one non-negotiable rule: your notes are encrypted on your device before they ever reach a server. The company running the sync infrastructure stores ciphertext it cannot read, which is the same zero-knowledge model Standard Notes popularised, applied to an app that actually feels modern. You get rich text, notebooks, tags, reminders, linked notes, a web clipper and note publishing, across six platforms, with unlimited notes and unlimited devices even on the free plan. It is the rare privacy tool that does not ask you to accept a worse product as the price of not being tracked.

It is made by Streetwriters (Private) Ltd, a small independent team rather than a venture-backed startup, and the whole thing is open source. The clients are GPLv3 and the sync server is MIT licensed and published on GitHub, so the privacy claims are auditable rather than promised. Self-hosting the sync server is possible with Docker Compose alongside MongoDB and MinIO, though the project labels it alpha and unsupported. In practice, most people will use the hosted sync and simply appreciate that leaving is possible. That escape hatch matters more than it looks: the usual risk with a small note app is that the company disappears and takes your archive with it, and open clients plus an open server plus plain exports remove most of that risk.

What Are Notesnook’s Key Features?

Zero-Knowledge Encryption and App Lock

Everything is encrypted client side before sync, including note content, titles, tags and attachments. On top of that sit two extra locks. App Lock protects the whole app behind a fingerprint, PIN or password separate from your device unlock, so handing someone your phone does not hand them your notes. Vault adds a second password to individual notes, which is the right model for the handful of things you genuinely do not want visible in a search result. There is no third party security audit published, which is the one asterisk here and the main gap against Standard Notes. The code being public is not the same thing as someone qualified having reviewed it, and Notesnook should close that gap.

A Real Editor

The editor is not a plain text box. It handles rich formatting, task lists, tables, outlines, math formulas, code blocks with syntax highlighting, and file attachments. Notes can link to each other, so you can build a lightweight personal wiki without installing plugins. The free plan includes rich text writing, which matters because Standard Notes historically put formatting behind a paid tier, and Essential at $1.99 a month unlocks the remaining editor features. For most people the free editor is already better than what they were using. Search is fast and now supports filters, though it stays keyword based, so do not expect the fuzzy semantic search that AI-first note apps advertise.

Web Clipper, Publishing and the Inbox API

The browser extension saves articles without ads or trackers, which turns Notesnook into a read-later tool as well as a notebook. Individual notes can be published as web pages, optionally password protected, so you can share one note without exposing an account or a folder. There is also an Inbox API that accepts content from Zapier, IFTTT or your own scripts, which is a genuinely useful hook for a privacy-first app and something most encrypted competitors refuse to build.

Six Platforms and Real Cross-Device Sync

Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and web, with sync included on the free plan and no device cap. That combination is rarer than it sounds. Obsidian is free but charges $4 a month for its own sync, and self-managed alternatives ask you to run infrastructure. Notesnook gives you encrypted managed sync across unlimited devices for nothing, then charges for attachment storage and higher organisational limits rather than for the basic ability to use your notes on two machines.

How Much Does Notesnook Cost?

Notesnook is free, and the free tier is the story. You get unlimited encrypted notes on unlimited devices with sync, plus 50 notebooks, 50 tags, 7 colours, 10 active reminders, 100 note versions, app lock and 50 MB of attachment storage a month with a 10 MB file cap. If you write text and rarely attach files, you may never need to pay. Most privacy-first note apps put sync itself behind the paywall, and Notesnook does not. The limits that will actually push you to upgrade are the 50 MB monthly attachment allowance and the 50 notebook cap, not anything to do with writing.

Paid tiers are cheap by any standard. Essential is $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year and raises you to 1 GB of monthly storage, 100 MB files, 500 notebooks, 500 tags, 50 reminders and 1,000 note versions, and unlocks the full editor. Pro is $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year for 10 GB of monthly storage, 1 GB files and unlimited notebooks, tags, colours, reminders and versions. Believer is $8.99 a month or $89.99 a year for 25 GB of storage and 5 GB files, and exists mainly for people who want to fund the project. There are five year options at $344.99 for Pro and $459.99 for Believer, and a 14 day trial on paid plans.

Compare that with the field. Standard Notes charges $90 a year for Productivity and $120 a year for Professional, so Notesnook Essential at $19.99 a year is roughly a fifth of the price. Obsidian’s app is free but Sync costs $4 a month billed annually, which is double Essential and comes without built-in end-to-end encrypted publishing. Joplin Cloud Basic is $2.99 a month for 2 GB. Notesnook Essential undercuts every one of them, and Pro at $69.99 a year still lands below Standard Notes Productivity.

Who is Notesnook Best For?

Use Notesnook if privacy is a requirement rather than a preference and you still want the app to be pleasant. Journalers, therapists and lawyers keeping sensitive client notes, people leaving Evernote or Notion over data concerns, writers who want their drafts to be nobody else’s training data. It also suits anyone who wants encrypted sync without becoming a sysadmin, since the hosted service does the work and the open source server means you can move later.

• Privacy-conscious individuals who want zero-knowledge sync out of the box
• Journalers and diarists who need per-note vault passwords and app lock
• Budget-minded users who find Standard Notes at $90 a year hard to justify
• Open source advocates who want auditable clients and the option to self-host

Skip Notesnook if you need real-time collaboration. There is no shared editing, no comments and no team workspace, and end-to-end encryption makes those features hard to build. Skip it if you want AI writing, summarising or semantic search built in, because there is none, deliberately. Skip it if your workflow depends on a knowledge graph, community plugins and deep local file control, since Obsidian is far stronger there. And if your security policy requires a published third party audit, Standard Notes has that and Notesnook does not.

Best Notesnook Alternatives

Standard Notes

The elder statesman of encrypted note apps and the one Notesnook is explicitly positioned against. Standard Notes has been through third party security audits and has a longer track record, which counts if you are making a compliance argument. The cost is money and comfort: Productivity is $90 a year and Professional is $120 a year, and the writing experience has historically been more austere. Pick Standard Notes if audit history is the deciding factor. Pick Notesnook if you want a nicer app for a fifth of the price.

Obsidian

A different philosophy entirely. Obsidian keeps plain markdown files on your disk, which means total data ownership and no vendor sync at all unless you buy it. Its graph view, backlinks and enormous plugin ecosystem make it the strongest tool here for building a connected knowledge base. The app is free for personal use, Sync is $4 a month billed annually and Sync Plus is $8. Choose Obsidian if extensibility and local files matter most. Choose Notesnook if you would rather have encryption and sync working correctly on day one.

Joplin

The other open source contender, and the most flexible on storage. Joplin is free, supports end-to-end encryption and can sync via Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, S3 or its own Joplin Cloud from $2.99 a month for the Basic tier. It has a strong plugin community and excellent Evernote import. The trade-off is polish: the interface feels dated next to Notesnook and setup involves more decisions. Joplin is the pick if you want to control where your data physically sits without paying anyone.

Final Verdict: Is Notesnook Worth It?

Notesnook is the best value in encrypted note-taking right now. The free plan gives you unlimited encrypted notes, unlimited devices and managed sync, which is more than most competitors offer at any price, and the paid tiers start at $19.99 a year when the nearest direct rival charges $90. The editor is good, the web clipper and publishing features are useful additions rather than filler, and the code being open means the privacy claims can be checked rather than trusted.

The honest caveats are the missing third party audit, the absence of any collaboration, and the fact that self-hosting is still alpha. None of those should stop an individual from switching today, but a security team writing policy will notice the first one. Our 8.4 out of 10 is for a small independent team shipping a genuinely private app that does not feel like a compromise. If you want your notes encrypted and you do not want to pay $90 a year for the privilege, this is the one to install.