11 Best Notes & PKM in 2026
Notes and personal knowledge management tools let individuals and teams capture, organize, and link text, images, and files for later retrieval and thinking.
Top notes & pkm
| Tool | Best for | License | Price | Reviews | Likes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anytype | privacy-conscious individuals and small teams who want a Notion-style flexible workspace that works fully offline and doesn't require trusting a third party with unencrypted data | Open core | Free | 0 | |
| Apple Notes | Apple users who want a free, preinstalled note app that syncs automatically across iPhone, iPad, and Mac without setting up a third-party account. | Free | Free tier · paid from $0.99/mo | 0 | |
| Bear | writers and students on Mac, iPhone, and iPad who want a fast markdown editor with tag-based organization instead of folders | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $2.99/mo | 0 | |
| Evernote | Individuals who want to capture and search notes, scanned documents, and web clips across phone, desktop, and browser in one synced place | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $14.99/mo | 0 | |
| Joplin | People who want an offline-first, end-to-end encrypted Markdown note app with a free self-hosted sync option and no vendor lock-in. | Open core | Free tier · paid from $3.23/mo | 0 | |
| Logseq | individuals who want a local-first, privacy-respecting outliner that stores notes as portable plain-text files instead of locking them into a proprietary cloud database | Open source | Free | 0 | |
| Microsoft OneNote | Windows and Microsoft 365 users who want a free, flexible page-based notebook for lecture notes, meeting notes, and research without a separate subscription | Freemium | Free | 0 | |
| Notion | Teams that want to consolidate scattered docs, wikis, and lightweight project trackers into one linked workspace, and are willing to spend time designing their own database structure. | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $10/mo | 0 | |
| Obsidian | individuals building a long-lived personal knowledge base who want their notes to stay plain markdown files they can read, back up, and move without the app | Freemium | Free tier · paid from $4/mo | 0 | |
| Roam Research | researchers, writers, and knowledge workers who want to build a browsable graph of cross-linked notes around a daily-notes workflow, rather than filing notes into folders | Paid | From $15/mo | 0 | |
| Standard Notes | privacy-focused professionals and journalists who want a fully open-source, end-to-end encrypted notes app they can self-host instead of trusting a vendor's servers | Open source | Free | 0 |
Anytype
Apple Notes
Bear
Evernote
Joplin
Logseq
Microsoft OneNote
Notion
Obsidian
Roam Research
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best notes & pkm tool right now?
- Anytype leads this list by user signals — it is best for privacy-conscious individuals and small teams who want a notion-style flexible workspace that works fully offline and doesn't require trusting a third party with unencrypted data. Apple Notes is the strongest runner-up.
Which notes & pkm are free?
- 10 of the 11 tools here have a usable free tier or are fully free: Anytype, Apple Notes, Bear, Evernote, Joplin and 5 more.
Are there open-source notes & pkm?
- Yes — Anytype, Joplin, Logseq, Standard Notes are open source.