Open Source Windows Note-Taking Apps
Sort By:
Note-Taking Apps for Windows
View 55 business solutionsBrowse free open source Note-Taking apps and projects for Windows below. Use the toggles on the left to filter open source Note-Taking apps by OS, license, language, programming language, and project status.
-
$300 Free Credits to Build on Google CloudPut your $300 in credit toward real workloads, then keep building with free monthly usage for 20+ products. No commitment and no charge until you upgrade.
-
Ship Agents FasterGemini Enterprise Agent Platform lets you rapidly build, scale, govern and optimize production-ready agents grounded in your organization's data. The platform enables developers to build custom or pre-built agents for virtually any use case. New customers get $300 in free credits.
-
1
Obsidian
Community plugins list, theme list, and releases of Obsidian
The Obsidian Releases repository provides the official distribution builds and installers for Obsidian, the popular markdown-based knowledge management and personal wiki application. Obsidian itself is a powerful, offline-first note-taking tool that helps users build interconnected knowledge graphs using markdown files stored locally on their devices, with plugins and community themes for extensibility. This repository houses versioned compiled binaries and packages for multiple platforms such as Windows, macOS, and Linux, enabling users to download stable or nightly builds directly without needing to build the app from source. By maintaining clear version history and downloadable artifacts, it makes it easy for individuals and organizations to audit, rollback, or pin specific Obsidian releases for workflows that depend on stability or particular plugin compatibility. -
2
A simple notepad-like text editor with many features. It is designed to be a small and fast.
-
3
Notepad Next
A cross-platform, reimplementation of Notepad++
A cross-platform, reimplementation of Notepad++. Though the application overall is stable and usable, it should not be considered safe for critically important work. There are numerous bugs and half-working implementations. Pull requests are greatly appreciated. Windows packages are available as an installer or a stand-alone zip file on the release page. The installer provides additional components such as an auto-updater and Windows context menu integration. -
4
Xournal++
A handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support
Xournal++ (/ˌzɚnl̟ˌplʌsˈplʌs/) is an open-source and cross-platform note-taking software that is fast, flexible, and functional. A modern rewrite and a more feature-rich version of the wonderful Xournal program. Support for pressure-sensitive stylus and drawing tablets (Wacom, Huion, XP-Pen, etc.) Robust and customizable pen, highlighter and eraser tools, allowing you to write how you want to write. Use layers to make complex notes that are still pleasant to work with. Keep track of the notes by using page previews. Add images and create various shapes, from circles to splines to axis. Snap objects to rectangular grid or degrees of rotation. Create anything from differential equations to electrical circuits or the structural formula of molecules using our built-in LaTeX editor. Customize your toolbar to create a new layout, tailor-made for you. -
Custom VMs From 1 to 96 vCPUs With 99.95% UptimeLive migration and automatic failover keep workloads online through maintenance. One free e2-micro VM every month.
-
5
Open Notebook
An Open Source implementation of Notebook LM with more flexibility
Open Notebook is an open-source, privacy-focused alternative to Google’s Notebook LM that gives users full control over their research and AI workflows. Designed to be self-hosted, it ensures complete data sovereignty by keeping your content local or within your own infrastructure. The platform supports 16+ AI providers—including OpenAI, Anthropic, Ollama, Google, and LM Studio—allowing flexible model choice and cost optimization. Open Notebook enables users to organize and analyze multi-modal content such as PDFs, videos, audio files, web pages, and Office documents. It combines full-text and vector search with context-aware AI chat to deliver insights grounded in your own research materials. With advanced features like multi-speaker podcast generation, customizable content transformations, and a comprehensive REST API, Open Notebook provides a powerful and extensible research environment. -
6
Joplin
Open source note taking and to-do app with synchronization
Joplin is a free and open source note-taking and to-do application that can handle a large number of notes in Markdown format, organize them into notebooks and synchronize them with various cloud services. All notes can also be copied, tagged, searched and modified directly from the app or through your own text editor. Notes that are exported from Evernote can be imported into Joplin, be it formatted content, resources, complete metadata or plain Markdown files. When notes are synchronized with cloud services, notebooks, tags and other metadata can easily be moved, inspected or backed up as plain text files. Supported cloud services include Nextcloud, OneDrive, Dropbox and WebDAV. Joplin is available for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS and Android, with three types: desktop, mobile and terminal. All of them have similar user interfaces and can be synchronized with each other. -
7
TagSpaces
TagSpaces is an offline, open source, document manager with tagging
TagSpaces is a free, no vendor lock-in, open source application for organizing, annotating and managing local files with the help of tags. It features advanced note taking functionalities and some capabilities of to-do apps. The application is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS and Android. We provide a web clipper extension for Firefox, Edge and Chrome for easy collecting of online content in the form of local files. File and folder management - TagSpaces provides a convenient user interface for browsing, viewing and man files and folders. The application supports two ways for tagging files. The default one embeds the tags directly in the name of the file, the other one uses a so called sidecar files for persisting the tags. The search functionality supports fuzzy functionality and can filter your locations for files and folders containing one or more tags. -
8
Lorien
Infinite canvas drawing/whiteboarding app
Lorien is a fast, lightweight infinite-canvas drawing and note-taking application designed for brainstorming, sketching, and freeform diagramming without the bloat of traditional bitmap editors. Instead of storing raster image data, Lorien saves each brush stroke as vector-like points and reconstructs drawings at runtime, resulting in extremely small save files and smooth performance even on large canvases. The app runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and it’s built using the Godot game engine, which gives it a responsive and modern user interface across platforms. Users get features like infinite zoom, undo/redo, and a grid that stretches endlessly, making it well suited to both quick scribbles and detailed conceptual layouts. Lorien supports pressure-sensitive tablets for natural drawing, and it includes a range of basic tools — from freehand brush and eraser to shapes and selection tools — so you can mix freeform sketches with structured diagrams. -
9
Trilium Notes
Build your personal knowledge base
Trilium is provided as either desktop application (Linux and Windows) or web application hosted on your server (Linux). Mac OS desktop build is available, but it is unsupported. Synchronization with self-hosted sync server, strong note encryption with per-note granularity, relation maps and link maps for visualizing notes and their relations, and scripting, see Advanced showcases. Scales well in both usability and performance upwards of 100 000 notes, touch optimized mobile frontend for smartphones and tablets, night theme, evernote and Markdown import & export, as well as web clipper for easy saving of web content. If you want to use Trilium on the desktop, download binary release for your platform from latest release, unzip the package and run trilium executable. Install the application on both a server, for web access and data synchronization, and desktop instance(s). This allows all the data to be stored on the server. -
Demo Series - Small Business Backup By VeeamWatch this on-demand demo series and learn how to protect your Microsoft 365 data with clear, simple, actionable steps that are easy to implement for businesses of all sizes.
-
10
Better Notes for Zotero
Everything about note management
Better Notes is a Zotero plugin that expands the application into a connected note-taking and knowledge management workspace. It supports linked notes so researchers can connect ideas, sources, and annotations across their libraries. A template system can automate literature notes, metadata analysis, summaries, and repeatable research workflows. Notes can synchronize bidirectionally with Markdown files and export to Markdown, DOCX, PDF, or mind map formats. Editor enhancements add outlines, relationship views, image tools, and multiple note tabs or windows. Optional AI integrations can assist with writing while keeping the surrounding workflow inside Zotero. The plugin is designed to work immediately while remaining highly customizable through templates and APIs. -
11
memos
An open-source, self-hosted memo hub with knowledge management
A lightweight, self-hosted memo hub. Open Source and Free forever. memos provides the privacy security and reliability that innovators need in their moments of inspiration. Keep your own data by yourself. All data generated at runtime is saved in the SQLite database file. All content will be saved as plain text, not HTML. And lots of useful markdown syntaxes are supported. Using Go + React.js + SQLite architecture, the overall package is very lightweight. You can customize the server name, icon, description, custom system style and execution script, etc. memos believes that open source is the future, and all code is already open source in GitHub. All features are free forever and will never be charged in any form or content. -
12
QOwnNotes
QOwnNotes is a plain-text file notepad and todo-list manager
QOwnNotes is a fully open-source markdown-focused note-taking and personal information manager that runs natively on Linux, macOS, and Windows, with a strong emphasis on plain-text storage and cross-device synchronization. Because all notes are stored as markdown files in user-controlled directories, you avoid vendor lock-in and can sync through services like Nextcloud, ownCloud, Dropbox, or Git without proprietary cloud dependency. The application is optimized for performance and minimal footprint, so it runs smoothly even with large note libraries, and it includes features like a live markdown preview panel that lets you see rendered text alongside raw markdown as you type. QOwnNotes supports hierarchical folders and tagging, making it easy to organize, filter, and retrieve information quickly, and it also integrates to-do lists and task markers directly in your notes. -
13
obsidian.nvim
Obsidian Neovim
obsidian.nvim is a Neovim plugin that integrates with Obsidian, the popular note-taking and knowledge base app. It allows users to manage their Obsidian vaults directly from Neovim, offering markdown editing, backlinking, tag navigation, and link autocompletion features. This plugin bridges the gap between Obsidian’s personal knowledge management and Neovim’s powerful editing capabilities, enabling a seamless, keyboard-driven workflow. -
14
Notes
Note taking application, write down your thoughts.
Notes is an open source, cross-platform note-taking application. Write down your thoughts with ease, and always have them with you with this simple, streamlined app. -
15
Awesome Mac
Collect premium software in various categories
Now we have become very big and different from the original idea. Here we collect awesome macOS software in various categories. Feel free to star and fork. Reading and writing tools, text editors, office, markdown tools, note-taking, journaling. Ebooks, RSS, developer tools, IDEs, developer utilities, etc. Regular expression editors, API development and analysis, network analysis, command line tools, frameworks for hybrid applications, version control. Virtualization, databases, design and product, design tools, prototyping and mind-mapping tools, screen capturing software, etc. Major software download sites, there are a number of OSX Mac software sites. This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. -
16
GloboNote
Create sticky notes, to-do list, journals & reminders all in one app
GloboNote is a free and easy to use desktop note taking application. It lets you create sticky notes, to-do lists, journals, reminders and other notes in one place. There are no limits to the number of sticky notes you can create. Notes can be organize by groups and search using the search tool. GloboNote can be run in any OS that has Java 8 installed. -
17
Old Win32 Notepad
Old Windows Notepad remake
-
18
Neorg
Modernity meets insane extensibility
Neorg is an all-encompassing tool based around structured note taking, project and task management, time tracking, slideshows, writing typeset documents and much more. The premise is that all of these features are built on top of a single base file format (.norg), which the user only has to learn once to gain access to all of Neorg's functionality. Not only does this yield a low barrier for entry for new users it also ensures that all features are integrated with each other and speak the same underlying language. The file format is built to be expressive and easy to parse, which also makes .norg files easily usable anywhere outside of Neorg itself. A good way of thinking about Neorg is as a plaintext environment that can be adapted to a variety of use cases. If a problem can be represented using raw text, it can be solved using Neorg. -
19
gitnote
A modern note taking app based on GIT
A modern note-taking app based on GIT that does not require a local GIT environment. Supports thinking brain maps, helping us to visualize things in a visual way, such as recording and inspiring ideas. It supports multiple export methods. Grapheditor is diagram software for making flowcharts, process diagrams, org charts, UML, ER, and network diagrams. Using markdown, you can easily create a web version of the presentation and support export. Supports multiple images hosting uploads, automatically inserts into the notes, and provides API to freely customize your own image hosting. Supports multiple images hosting uploads. Supports markdown writing app for presentations. Supports diagram editor. Supports thinking brain map. Git is the world's most advanced distributed version control system. GitNote has all the features of Git and does not need to rely on the local GIT environment. -
20
Makagiga
To-do manager, notepad, RSS reader...
Makagiga is an open-source, easy-to-use, portable application for doing a variety of tasks, such as todo listing, text editing, or RSS reading. Plugins are used to implement its various capabilities. -
21
Notable
The Markdown-based note-taking app that doesn't suck
Notes are written in Markdown, plus you can write KaTeX expressions, Mermaid diagrams and more, check out our Markdown cheatsheet. Notable provides a very powerful Markdown editor, it's the same one VS Code uses in fact, so features like multi-cursors, a minimap and best-in-class syntax highlighting are built-in. Notes and attachments are simply stored on your disk, this is extremely portable and powerful: you could edit your notes via a third-party editor on mobile, have them synchronized via Dropbox, use Git, run a regex-based search and replace etc. A dark theme is also available. In the future support for custom themes will be added as well. Zen mode provides a minimalistic editing and reading experience, hiding everything that's not necessary. Notable is also keyboard friendly, has a quick open window, and we'll soon add a command palette too, so you won't have to click any buttons if you don't want to. -
22
nb
CLI and local web plain text note‑taking, bookmarking, and archiving
nb is a powerful, flexible, and self-contained note-taking and knowledge management application that empowers users to write, organize, search, and archive plain-text notes, bookmarks, and tasks from the command line or through a local web server. Designed to be portable and vendor-independent, it stores all content as plain text files with optional encryption, which means notes can be versioned, diffed, and synced with Git just like code, giving users fine-grained control over their personal information. The tool supports tagging, linking with wiki-style references, filtering, pinned items, and full-text search, making it easy to build a structured knowledge base or Zettelkasten system that grows over time. Users can bookmark web pages and have content auto-cleaned and saved alongside their notes, which gives nb a combined role as both a personal wiki and a bookmarks manager, organized through tags and folders. -
23
Notepad X is an alternative open source text editor for Microsoft Windows, with a lot of customization options created to help users managing text documents featuring tab navigation.
-
24
Hypernomicon
Hypertext-infused philosophy personal database software
Hypernomicon is a personal productivity/database application for researchers that combines structured note-taking, mind-mapping, management of files (e.g., PDFs) and folders, and reference management into an integrated environment that organizes all of the above into semantic networks or hierarchies in terms of debates, positions, arguments, labels, terminology/concepts, and user-defined keywords by means of database relations and automatically generated hyperlinks (hence ‘Hyper’ in the name). Hypernomicon keeps track of all these things in a highly structured, thoroughly indexed and user friendly relational database, automatically generates semantic hyperlinks between all of them, and presents this information in many different forms so that you are constantly informed of ways all of your information is related that you had not realized. -
25
Lifeograph
Cross-platform, parametric note-taking application
Lifeograph combines powerful features with a clean and thoughtfully designed interface. Your data stays on your device, and built-in encryption keeps privacy at the core. With WYSIWYG editing, your entries always appear in their final form. Integrated data extraction tools transform your journal entries into dynamic tables and charts.
