Note taking applications

The best note taking application doesn't exist.

Sorry, that's not strictly true. There are many excellent note-taking applications (Apple Notes, Evernote, Google Docs, Microsoft OneNote, Notion, Roam, etc.), but no single application will meet everyone's needs. You may find, as I did, that recommendations from some productivity experts do not meet your needs.

The difficulty is figuring out which one best suits your needs. I have tried many applications over the years and stumbled upon the following checklist, which helped me find the best one for me. I have been using this same application for more than 4 years now.

Do you want to access your notes from your phone, computer?
- If so, you probably want to look at a cloud-based (or cloud-enabled) solution.
Do you want to take notes including code-snippets?

You may find that some note-taking applications (especially those focusing on pure-text note-taking) limit the presentation of code. Unless you see it in the features, it's unlikely that support is at the top of the application developer's mind.

Do you want to take notes including mathematical or scientific symbols?

The rendering of mathematical formulae in pure-text note-taking applications is very poor. Check whether the features support the styles you need.

Are there any limitations on the terms of use that you are not happy with?

It is important to read the terms of use to see if there are any restrictions that make it difficult for you to use the application.

Are your notes text, or do they include images or multi-media?

Your notes will take up more space than text notes, so you will need to review the application's storage costs.

Is the application easy to use?

You want to use the application to take notes. So, the less setup and configuration, the better. Does the note-taking application fit your style?

My trial-and-error adventure first started with Evernote a nice note-taking app for text-based notes. The problems I had were with the lack of support for scientific notation. I then tried Notion which takes a little bit of getting used to as it is highly configurable. I found it took me quite a bit of time to configure things as I tried to follow what others had done. It looked to me as if it required a lot of configuration and fine-tuning. It does support mathematical and scientific formulae, but the time I spent configuring the system frustrated me, so I looked for another solution. Roam is another application similar to Notion as far as note-taking is concerned. It was easier to use than Notion and supported mathematical and scientific formulae.

I almost always take notes on my laptop and very rarely use my phone. So, the flexibility of a cloud-based solution was lost on me. I also found that applications got in the way of my ability to focus on taking notes. I was also more keen on keeping my notes locally rather than in a cloud service.

I had heard a lot about LogSeq and Obsidian. Both use markdown to style notes and store notes locally. They both support styles for displaying code snippets, and support writing scientific formulae.

I tried LogSeq, which supports an outline-based note-taking approach and treats each bullet as a block. You can refer to blocks. I found the outline-based approach quite restrictive. I finally settled on Obsidian, which is more style agnostic. Obsidian provided me with an application that lets me take notes and search them without getting in my way. My setup is extremely simple, and I only use the Calendar plugin for a calendar view of my notes.

I hope my adventure is of help to you and that you manage to find and settle on an application that meets your needs.