There are tons of Notes app available in the playstore and f-droid. I have use my fair share of them these are my best 5 recommendations. All of these are free to use and have to pay extra if you want specific features.
- All in one - Wenote - This is the most powerful note app I have used. This has memo, voice record, calendar, sync, color coding, various fonts, categories etc. Some of these features are behind a paywall. But It is a one time payment. It looks minimal and is light weight.
- All in one but foss - Joplin - This is an open-source project. Available on almost all platforms. If you want a powerful cross-platform note taking application then this is the best bet. This is Completely free but has an option of premium sync option. You can use free sync service to nextcloud and webdav.
- Security - Standard Notes - This is a note taking application that focuses on security. This is an open-source private notes app meaning your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. It has a minimal and clean UI. It has dedicated apps for most platforms and syncs your notes securely across all your devices, including your Android devices, Windows, iOS, Linux, and Web.
- Modern - Bundled Notes - This is the most modern looking Notes app on my list. It is aesthetically pleasing and intuitive. A powerful notes, lists, reminders and to-do app. Easily organise notes, lists, photos, files, and more. A google keep alternative.
- For casual use - Notally - A lightweight note taking application. A simple and elegant open source notes app. Notally is a minimalistic note taking app with a beautiful material design and powerful features. Dark mode, Completely free, Adjustable text size, Auto save and backup, No permissions required.
Any opinion on Notion? I’ve been trying to find a Linux replacement for OneNote over the last year. I’ll definitely give Joplin a look.
I like Notion well enough, but it’s not FOSS and they’ve been a little bit over-obsessed with (in some cases even pushy about) AI and enterprise project management recently. The Android app is also a little tricky and fiddly if you want to do much more formatting than just basic BIU+links. But it’s very extensible, clean design, crosslinks well, syncs quickly, and overall works really effectively.
I tried Notion, forget why I didn’t jump in. Maybe because it’s not FOSS, but probably more of an issue around sync or how it stored files.
Joplin really seems to address my issues with sync (I can use Syncthing to sync files myself), and how files are stored. They even have a OneNote importer, though I suspect it’s still going to be challenging for me.