General-purpose note-taking applications are the digital equivalent of notebooks, but with far greater flexibility. They let you quickly capture ideas, organise information, search through large collections of notes, and keep important material close at hand. Whether you are jotting down reminders, storing research, planning projects, or managing everyday information, a good note-taking program soon becomes an indispensable desktop companion.
Linux offers a wide range of note-taking software, but not all of it serves the same purpose. Some applications are designed for handwritten notes and annotation, others mimic sticky notes, while some are better described as personal knowledge managers or desktop wikis. This roundup focuses on general-purpose GUI note apps: applications intended for writing, organising, and managing notes in a conventional graphical desktop interface. These are the programs best suited to everyday note-taking, whether they use plain text, rich text, Markdown, notebooks, tags, or hierarchical organisation.
We’ve compiled this roundup of the finest free and open source general-purpose GUI note-taking software available for Linux. These applications help keep your thoughts, reminders, plans, and reference material organised, accessible, and easy to manage.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here.
Click the links in the table below to learn all the apps.
| General Purpose GUI Note Taking Apps | |
|---|---|
| Joplin | Note taking and to-do application with synchronisation |
| Trilium Notes | Hierarchical note taking application |
| CherryTree | Hierarchical note taking application packed with features |
| TagSpaces | Personal data manager for organizing, editing and tagging information |
| VNote | Vim-inspired note-taking application |
| Simplenote | Fast, free, synchronized notes |
| Notesnook | Focused on user privacy and ease of use |
| Tusk | Evernote desktop software |
| QOwnNotes | Plain-text file notepad with markdown support and ownCloud integration |
| heynote | Dedicated scratchpad for developers |
| tomboy-ng | Reincarnation of tomboy |
| Beaver Notes | Notes stay on your device. No sign-ups, no tracking, no complexity |
| Iotas | Distraction-free note taking via its mobile-first design |
| Gnote | Port of Tomboy to C++ |
| KleverNotes | Note taking and management application |
| Treedome | Seeks inspiration from CherryTree |
| Print(Notes) | Markdown notes app made with Flutter |
| Folio | Markdown note-taking app for GNOME |
| FeatherNotes | Lightweight Qt5 hierarchical notes manager |
| nvPY | Inspired by Notational Velocity and ResophNotes |
| Lockbook | Encrypted notebook |
| FromScratch | Simple but smart note-taking app |
| NotNative | Modern note-taking app with Vim-like editing |
| HelixNotes | Local-first Markdown note-taking app |
| Darkwrite | Eye-candy note taking and to-do app |
| Bookup | Streamline notes with Markdown |
| BasKet Note Pads | Organizing, sharing, and taking notes |
| mnemo | Local-first, cross-platform note-taking app leveraging the Typst ecosystem |
| MyNotex | Take and to manage textual notes and activity management |
| Hugvi | Code note-taking desktop app |
 Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |