switching to – After years of relying on Simplenote for quick notes, then using Obsidian for more structured work, I gave Notesnook a real test for two weeks. I liked what it promised—end-to-end encryption, offline access, a rich free plan, attachments, notebooks, and more p
For two weeks, my note-taking life has been split in two: the way I used to work, and the way I’ve been working since I switched to Notesnook.
For a long time, my setup ran on two apps. Simplenote handled quick notes—simple, fast, and exactly what I wanted. Obsidian carried the heavier load for structured notes. But somewhere along the way, Simplenote stopped feeling liberating and started feeling limiting in everyday use. So I tried to replace it.
I tested a handful of popular note-taking apps. Notesnook ended up being the one that fit my needs best, and I’ve now switched to it as my go-to notes app—at least for the role Simplenote used to play.
The big reason I stuck with it is privacy, and it isn’t subtle about it. Notesnook offers end-to-end encryption. and it’s built to keep your notes private whether they’re on your device. on Notesnook’s servers. or in transit. The company says this means no one—including its team—can read your notes. For someone like me who writes down personal and work-related information that I want close at hand. that promise is a relief that Simplenote doesn’t make in the same way.
Notesnook also gives you a generous free plan, and it’s unusually feature-rich for a no-cost tier. It keeps notes synced across devices without forcing the kind of manual workarounds I had to deal with on Obsidian. And unlike apps like Notion. Notesnook has a fully functional offline mode—so you can view. edit. search. and organize notes even when you’re not connected to the internet.
On top of that, Notesnook is cross-platform and available on all major mobile and desktop platforms. It also includes a free web clipper for Firefox and Chromium-based browsers. letting you save webpages and articles directly into Notesnook. The clipper supports text selection, so you can grab the exact paragraphs you want.
Where the switch really clicked for my day-to-day use was how Notesnook handles notes beyond plain text.
Simplenote is designed around text. and I felt that limitation as soon as I started relying on Notesnook for richer capture. Notesnook lets you insert images and attach files—PDFs, scanner receipts, audio clips, and more—directly into your notes. That’s the kind of flexibility I actually reach for when I’m researching. planning. keeping records like vehicle services. or jotting down instructions I don’t want to lose.
Then there’s organization. With Simplenote, grouping similar notes comes down to using the same tag name. Notesnook uses notebooks instead—folders where similar notes can live. It also allows each notebook to contain multiple sub-notebooks, which makes hierarchical organization feel possible instead of forced.
And on formatting, Notesnook goes further than Simplenote. Simplenote supports Markdown for formatting text on the go. but it doesn’t offer the basic text-formatting options that I started to notice I needed. Notesnook includes essential styling like bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, subscript, superscript, code, and Math. It also supports headings and lists. along with a tables feature that I found useful for comparisons and for tracking project status.
For me, those choices show up immediately in both the mobile and desktop editors—everything is laid out in a way that makes formatting feel practical rather than fiddly.
But the switch didn’t come without a cost.
The first thing I missed from Simplenote is speed. Simplenote’s lightweight, minimalist interface launches quickly, and because all notes appear in a vertical list, it’s easy to tap or click a note and start working right away.
Notesnook can’t match that same “instant” feeling, at least not in the way it’s currently set up for me.
The second gap is Markdown—specifically, the lack of full-fledged support for Markdown-based note-taking. With Notesnook. you can type Markdown tags—called shortcuts—and they get rendered to rich text instead of being captured as raw Markdown. There’s also an important limitation: Markdown shortcuts aren’t available on the free plan. To use them, you have to upgrade to a paid Notesnook plan.
Of all the Simplenote features I left behind, raw Markdown support is the one I miss the most.
There are also problems with how history works across devices. Notesnook lets you view a note’s revision history since its inception, but it’s local. That means it doesn’t sync changes across all devices. If you make updates on your phone, you can’t view or restore those changes on the Notesnook desktop app. Simplenote handles revision history differently by syncing it across devices.
And finally, there’s collaboration. Simplenote’s collaboration feature has been one of the most useful things for me—especially for vacation planning and shopping lists. It works simply: you add someone’s email address to a note. the note appears in their note list. and they can view and make changes. Updates show up in real time on both sides. Notesnook doesn’t have that same capability yet, and in its community, collaboration is one of the most requested features.
So where does that leave me after two weeks?
I haven’t kept Simplenote around. I’ve replaced it with Notesnook, and I’ve even started using Notesnook for permanent notes, moving some notes over from Obsidian.
But I’m not replacing Obsidian any time soon. Obsidian still feels like one of the best tools for managing databases. wikis. and knowledge bases because of its plugin support. I also can’t live without Obsidian’s knowledge graph. which helps me visualize my vault and spot related and orphaned notes. Automation workflows, Markdown support, and no vendor lock-in are also major reasons I haven’t made a full switch.
Notesnook has become my daily home for notes. Simplenote, at least for now, is out. Obsidian is still there for the deeper work.
In the end. the choice feels less like a clean replacement and more like a rebalancing—moving toward stronger encryption. better attachments. smarter organization. richer formatting. and offline access. while accepting that I’ll have to live without some of Simplenote’s speed. raw Markdown convenience. synced revision history. and collaboration until Notesnook catches up.
Notesnook Simplenote Obsidian end-to-end encryption offline mode note-taking app Markdown collaboration revision history web clipper