We all love a good, feature-deep note-taking app, but sometimes, even the most popular tools like Google Keep can feel limiting.
For starters, when it comes to organization, Google Keep relies heavily on color-coded labels and pinned notes, which, while functional, don’t offer the depth or flexibility some users need. If you’re someone who likes to organize notes in a more structured, detailed way (say, by project, category, or priority), you need a Google Keep alternative.
If you’ve ever wished for a more robust and flexible note-taking experience than what Google Keep offers, you’re in the right place. There are several alternatives out there, each bringing something fresh to the table that could reshape the way you manage your notes.
In this list, we’ll understand why these apps might be the smarter choice for the way you work.
10 Best Google Keep Alternatives for Smarter Note-Taking
Why Go For Google Keep Alternatives
While Google Keep serves its purpose for quick notes, there are plenty of reasons why you might want to explore alternatives. Some of them include 👇
- Restricted organization features: Google Keep’s limited tagging and labeling system can make it difficult to manage large volumes of notes. Alternatives offer more advanced categorization options, such as notebooks, folders, or nested tags
- Lack of task management integration: If you need something more than just a place to jot down ideas, you may want note-taking tools that integrate with task management systems. Alternatives to Google Keep often have built-in to-do lists, reminders, and project tracking features that help you stay on top of your goals
- Limited customization: If you prefer to personalize your note-taking experience, Google Keep falls short. Advanced note-taking tools often provide better options for customizing layouts, themes, and even note appearance
- Basic search functionality: While Google Keep has a basic search feature, some alternatives offer more powerful search capabilities, such as searching within specific tags, filtering by content type (images, audio, links), or even allowing for complex Boolean searches
The Top 10 Google Keep Alternatives at Glance
| Tool | Key features | Best for | Pricing* |
| Notepad, collaborative documents, rich text formatting, media embeds, version history, secure sharing, AI assistant | Individuals, small teams, and enterprises needing a flexible, integrated note-taking and project management solution | Free plan available; Custom pricing for enterprises | |
| Evernote | OCR search, notebooks and tags, Document scanner, AI Edit tools |
Teams managing research-heavy notes with multimedia | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $14.99/month |
| Microsoft OneNote | Freeform note canvas, Linked Notes, immersive reader, AI Copilot, Search inside audio/video |
Microsoft software users seeking seamless note-sharing | Free with a Microsoft 365 plan |
| Apple Notes | Recordings with transcription, linked notes AES-GCM encryption with Face ID/passphrase unlock, tags, Smart Folders, Smart Script |
Individuals who prefer secure note-taking on Apple devices | Free |
| Standard Notes | Open-source, end-to-end encrypted note-taking, rich text, Markdown, dynamic checklists, encrypted backups, smart views | Remote and distributed teams who need privacy-first, encrypted note-taking | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $63/year |
| Joplin | Open-source, offline notetaking, Web Clipper, full Markdown, LaTeX math, diagram support custom CSS styling, sub-notebooks, in-note drawings/sketches |
Small to mid-size teams looking for open-source note-taking with offline support | Free (open source); Paid plans start at $3.5/month |
| Bear | Markdown, inline styling, to-do checkboxes, nested tags, code blocks with syntax highlighting for 150+ languages, Focus Mode, advanced search | Creative individuals and writers who need stylish note-taking with creative flair | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $2.99/month |
| Nimbus Note (Fuse Base) | Multi-format ‘Super Documents’, OCR search in images/scans, email-to-note, secure public branded portals, IFTTT integration, embedded databases | Marketing teams handling branded client portals and knowledge hubs | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $39/month |
| Zoho Notebook | Cross-platform notes, Smart Cards, Notebooks with covers, tags, and stacks, Noteboards, audio transcription, AI sketch recognition | Zoho users integrating notes with business tools | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $1.99/month |
| Simplenote | Minimalist plain text/Markdown note-taking, Nested tags, checklists real-time collaboration, publishing, mobile widgets, bulk import |
Individuals looking for minimalist, distraction-free note-taking | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $10/year |
The Best Google Keep Alternatives to Use
Let’s discuss each of these tools in detail 👇
How we review software at
Our editorial team follows a transparent, research-backed, and vendor-neutral process, so you can trust that our recommendations are based on real product value.
Here’s a detailed rundown of how we review software at .
1. (Best all-in-one tool that combines note-taking with project management)
In an age where ideas arrive at all hours and projects demand constant context, note-taking has moved far beyond quick scribbles. It’s now the backbone of how we capture thinking, refine it, and turn it into action. That’s why treats note-taking as a living part of your work.
For personal notes, quick lists, or ideas you’re not ready to formalize, Notepad offers a private space inside your workspace. You can jot down thoughts, create checklists, and attach files without interrupting your workflow.
It’s also well-thought-out for flexibility. With its text toolbar and content blocks, you can layer your notes with banners, headings, highlights, code snippets, pull quotes, and dividers.
You can also attach images, videos, or files with a simple slash command, embed checklists to keep track of personal to-dos, and rearrange blocks to refine your thinking.
Managing notes feels natural, too. Rename them to fit their purpose, convert them into tasks, or sort by most recent for quick access.
And if Notepad is where ideas are born, Docs is where they grow into fully realized projects. Once a thought has outgrown a quick capture, you can convert it from a note into a Doc with a single click.
Moreover, Docs supports full knowledge wikis, with hierarchical pages and subpages you can drag, nest, and reorder to build clear navigation.
Cover images, page icons, and custom formatting give each section visual character, while the centralized Docs Hub makes searching fast across small to large workspaces.
Docs also supports importing from other platforms, exporting to PDF, HTML, or Markdown, and version history to roll back changes.
If you are looking for an AI partner to summarize meeting discussions and identify action items from your notes, Brain is the built-in intelligence that sits quietly in the background, ready to help you when you need it.
Ask it to find the last time you wrote about a specific project, and it will pull up the right section instantly. Hand it a long, messy meeting draft, and it will distil it into a clean list of action items.
💡 Pro Tip: In Docs, highlight any text you want to refine, then use the text toolbar to instantly call Brain. It’ll fix grammar, shorten or expand text, and even rephrase for simplicity.
best features
- Centralized knowledge storage: Build a searchable information hub of docs and wikis using Knowledge Management, complete with tags, linked pages, and embedded content
- Automated workflow execution: Eliminate repetitive actions with Autopilot Agents that assign tasks, move items, send updates, and create summaries based on triggers or milestones
- Visual collaboration spaces: Map out processes and ideas in Whiteboards using sticky notes, flowcharts, and live task embeds
- Notes where you need them: Add notes and docs to tasks, chats, or even to your calendar events, and access them on the go using the mobile app
- Actionable meeting discussions: Automatically record meeting notes and share summaries and key takeaways afterward with the AI Notetaker
- Note-taking templates: Save time and effort with customizable note templates such as ’s Meeting Note Template
- Advanced task management: Break work into actionable steps using Tasks with subtasks, dependencies, recurring schedules, and custom fields, while switching between views like List, Board, or Timeline
limitation
- First-time users sometimes feel overwhelmed with the expanse of features in
pricing
free forever
Best for individual users
Free Free
Key Features:
unlimited
Best for small teams
$7 $10
Everything in Free Forever plus:
business
Best for mid-sized teams
$12 $19
Everything in Unlimited, plus:
enterprise
Best for many large teams
Get a custom demo and see how aligns with your goals.
Everything in Business, plus:
* Prices when billed annually
The world’s most complete work AI, starting at $9 per month
Brain is a no Brainer. One AI to manage your work, at a fraction of the cost.
Try for free
ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (10,400+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about ?
A G2 reviewer says,
💡 Pro Tip: No time to make notes? Just talk! Dictate your notes to Brain MAX using the one-touch Talk to Text feature, and text notes are saved where you need them!
Teams using Talk to Text can write 400% more without typing and save nearly an hour every day.
2. Evernote (Best for managing research-heavy notes with multimedia)
Evernote, a note-taking and productivity app, collates your notes, files, and ideas into one place and makes them easy to find later. You can store typed text, images, PDFs, scanned documents, audio, and handwritten pages, with everything searchable and organized with notebooks and tags.
It’s equally good at structuring your ideas. You can add checklists, embed files, insert photos, or link notes together to create a connected web of information.
Plus, the built-in document scanner turns your phone into a portable capture tool for receipts, contracts, and whiteboards, while optical character recognition (OCR) makes the text inside images fully searchable.
Evernote best features
- Summarize, rewrite, or convert your notes into different formats instantly with Evernote’s AI Edit tools
- Save web pages, articles, and screen captures using the Web Clipper
- Search inside scanned whiteboards, PDFs, and Office files with deep OCR and attachment indexing
- Link notes together to build connected knowledge networks and auto-generate clickable tables of contents
- Connect it to your calendar to sync notes with calendar events
Evernote limitation
- Some users note difficulties with file attachment, exporting, and a poorly functioning search that blurs note-specific and all-note results
Evernote pricing
- Free forever
- Personal: $14.99/month
- Professional: $17.99/month
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Evernote ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (2,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (8,000+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about Evernote?
A Capterra reviewer says,
👀 Did You Know? Leonardo da Vinci wrote many of his notes backwards (mirror writing), possibly to prevent smudging, as he was left-handed, or to keep ideas private.
3. Microsoft OneNote (Best for seamless note-sharing across Microsoft ecosystems)
OneNote is Microsoft’s living notebook that adapts to your projects, coursework, or personal knowledge base. Its freeform canvas lets you place text, sketches, audio, and images anywhere on the page, so your notes can follow the shape of your thinking.
When researching or planning across multiple sources, Linked Notes anchor your writing to the exact slide, web page, or document they relate to. For those who work with a stylus, Pen-Focused View offers quick access to custom ink tools, making it just as comfortable for sketching ideas as it is for annotating lecture slides.
Beyond that, reviewing and revisiting material becomes easier with Immersive Reader, which can read notes aloud, translate them, highlight grammar structures, and focus your view line by line.
However, compared to some of OneNote’s alternatives with advanced real-time collaboration features, OneNote’s co-authoring experience can feel slightly limiting.
Microsoft OneNote best features
- Capture, annotate, and share web content from anywhere using the Web Clipper
- Search inside audio and video recordings for spoken words, then navigate with quick playback shortcuts when you need the exact moment
- Replay ink strokes to watch a diagram or brainstorm unfold, perfect for revisiting how a solution came together
- Ask Copilot to summarize pages, extract action items, transcribe voice notes, or draft an outline from your notes when you’re short on time
- Share notes and work collaboratively on them with team members
Microsoft OneNote limitation
- Some users report syncing delays when switching devices, with no clear indication of which note version is the most current
Microsoft OneNote pricing
- Free with the Microsoft 365 plan
Microsoft OneNote ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (1,800+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (1,900+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about Microsoft OneNote?
A G2 reviewer says,
👀 Did You Know? In 1968, 3M scientist Spencer Silver accidentally created a glue that barely stuck to anything—a total flop… until years later, it became the world-changing Post-it Note.
4. Apple Notes (Best for secure note-taking on Apple devices)
Apple Notes is Apple’s built-in note-taking app, available across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, designed for quick captures and organized knowledge storage.
Inside Notes, you can go beyond basic note-taking and add recordings along with their transcription. And if you’re a student working on maths, solving equations on the go is incredibly simple too. Just type ‘x = 10’ on one line and ‘4 * x = ’ on the next, and Notes will calculate it for you.
You can link between notes using ‘>>’ to build a personal web of related thoughts. All notes are secured with AES-256 encryption, and you can also add another layer of security with Face ID, Touch ID, or a custom Notes password.
Apple Notes best features
- Organize notes with tags, Smart Folders, and quick internal note linking
- Add tables, checklists, images, links, and more to your notes
- Dictate your notes to the Siri AI assistant and have them show up in the Notes app right away
- Use Smart Script on iPad to refine and clean up handwritten notes in real time
- Read out or translate notes and highlight grammar with the Immersive Reader
- Access your notes on any of your Apple devices
Apple Notes limitation
- Some users report that the notes they save vanish with no recovery despite iCloud sync
Apple Notes pricing
- Free forever with Apple devices
Apple Notes ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Apple Notes?
A Quora user says,
📮 Insight: Around 90% of people set goals related to health or career growth, but passion projects and hobbies often fall by the wayside.
But fun ideas deserve the spotlight, too. Jot them down on Notepad or sketch them out via Whiteboards, and actually finish those creative projects you’ve been “getting around to” for months. All you need is a plan. 🤓
💫 Real Results: users say they can take on ~10% more work—including the fun kind—since switching to the tool.
5. Standard Notes (Best for privacy-first, encrypted note-taking)
Standard Notes is a vault-like note-taking app built around privacy-first principles and powerful modularity. This open source platform lets you write in plain text, rich text, Markdown, spreadsheets, and more.
One of its highlights is that your notes are secured using audited, zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption, meaning only you hold the keys.
For those who want more than words, ‘Super Notes’ unlock advanced blocks like formatted rich text, embedded files, dynamic checklists, and even embedded images.
Daily encrypted backups land in your inbox, and long-term revision history works like infinite undo. The Moments feature adds another dimension that allows you to capture encrypted photos linked to specific notes for visual journaling or context.
Standard Notes best features
- Keep a Daily Journal with automatically generated notes and an optional encrypted photo Moments log
- Organize all your data and notes easily with Smart Views for dynamic filters based on tags, content, or date ranges
- Customize the interface with themes or inject custom CSS for a personalized workspace
- Protect your notes with a passcode and with biometrics on mobile
Standard Notes limitation
- Free version limits text, lacks collaboration, and shows bugs on Linux with an outdated UI
Standard Notes pricing
- Standard: Free
- Productivity: $63/year
- Professional: $84/year
Standard Notes ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Standard Notes?
A G2 reviewer says,
💡 Pro Tip: Start each meeting note-taking session by writing the date and three key outcomes you want from the meeting at the top. This keeps your notes focused on capturing information that serves those specific goals instead of transcribing everything.
6. Joplin (Best for open-source note-taking with offline support)
Joplin is an open-source note-taking and task management app designed for those who value both control and flexibility in how their information is stored, organized, and accessed.
It works seamlessly across desktop, mobile, and even the command line, with the option to sync through services like Dropbox, OneDrive, or your own server.
What makes Joplin stand out is its ability to adapt to a wide range of workflows. You can save entire web pages, clip article excerpts, or capture screenshots directly into structured notebooks with the Web Clipper.
For those who like to fine-tune their workspace, Joplin offers several customization layers. You can change how rendered Markdown appears by adding a userstyle.css file in your profile directory, applying your own CSS to control both the on-screen and printed look of your notes. The entire interface can also be redesigned with userchrome.css.
Joplin best features
- Work in Markdown with WYSIWYG editing, diagram support, LaTeX math, and custom styling options
- Organize notebooks into sub-notebooks to build a clear, tree-like hierarchy for projects, work, or personal categories
- Insert and edit drawings directly in notes—draw with a stylus or touchscreen, zoom in for detail, and embed multiple sketches
- Capture and attach audio files and photos directly to your notes
- Share and create collaborative notes with others
Joplin limitation
- Users point out that the tool lacks PDF OCR, forcing reliance on outside tools for scanned searches
- Some reviewers have reported difficulty in editing notes on the mobile app
Joplin pricing
- Open-source: Free
- Joplin Cloud Basic: $3.5/month
- Joplin Cloud Pro: $7/month
- Joplin Cloud Teams: $9.5/month
*Converted from Euro pricing
Joplin ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Joplin?
A G2 reviewer says,
🌟 Bonus: Enhance note-taking with an AI-powered productivity tool that integrates with all your files and apps, both local and cloud-based.
Brain MAX understands your tasks, documents, meetings, and team dynamics, providing intelligent insights and contextually relevant automations. This ensures that your notes are not just text entries but are connected to ongoing work and objectives.
7. Bear (Best for stylish note-taking with creative flair)
Available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Bear combines a clean writing space with a robust tagging system that allows you to create nested, hashtag-based hierarchies. This means you can group notes into multi-level categories without relying on rigid folders.
Its Markdown-first approach keeps formatting fast and lightweight, while inline styling, to-do checkboxes, and support for images, sketches, and file attachments give you flexibility in how you capture ideas. The editor also supports code blocks with syntax highlighting for 150+ programming languages.
In this platform, you can use Boolean operators, tag filters, and even search within specific attachments. The ‘Focus Mode’ hides everything but your writing, while custom themes and typography settings let you tune the workspace to your preference.
Bear best features
- Use tags like #project/2025/phase1 to build intuitive hierarchies, and add TagCons (custom icons) for quick visual navigation
- Link notes or specific headings using [[note title]] or [[/Heading]], then use aliases to keep link text clear and meaningful
- Build a ‘Dashboard’ note that dynamically links to all notes under a certain tag using Shortcuts
- Share and export your notes in multiple formats, and even password-protect them
Bear limitation
- The lack of Windows or Android app support limits its cross-platform use
Bear pricing
Bear ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (40+ reviews)
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Bear?
A Capterra reviewer says,
8. Nimbus Note (Best for branded client portals and knowledge hubs)
Nimbus Note, a part of Fuse Base, is a multi-format workspace that turns a note into a small knowledge site.
You can build ‘Super Documents’ that mix text, tables, PDFs, images, video, and web captures in one place, then find anything again with OCR that searches inside images and scans. It’s built for teams and client work, with workspaces that keep projects separate and organized.
You can also forward emails to a private Nimbus address to turn conversations and attachments into notes.
Sharing with teams and peers is effortless on this platform. Publish notes or entire folders as public pages with your brand and a custom subdomain, add a password when needed, and even embed custom HTML or JS widgets for interactive docs or client portals.
Nimbus Note best features
- Capture context alongside reminders by setting time- or location-based alerts within any note, and choose whether they ping your device or arrive via email
- Use IFTTT to bring in content or trigger notes from over 900 services
- Curate dynamic dashboards using embedded tables and databases (‘TablesDBs’) that live inside notes
- Manage multiple users and workspaces for your organization with a centralized Organization Console
Nimbus Note limitation
- Some users reported that the loss of JSON exports restricts their data migration options
Nimbus Note pricing
- Solo: $39/month
- Essentials: $99/month
- Advanced: $332/month (billed annually)
- Unlimited: Custom pricing
Nimbus Note ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (100+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (170+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about Nimbus Note?
A G2 reviewer says,
🎯 Meeting Hack: When you’re in a meeting, try using keyword triggers to automatically categorize discussion topics as they’re transcribed. For example, set your meeting minutes software to tag mentions of ‘budget,’ ‘deadline,’ or ‘action item’ so you can instantly jump to specific discussion types when reviewing later.
9. Zoho Notebook (Best for Zoho users integrating notes with business tools)
Zoho Notebook is Zoho Corporation’s cross-platform note-taking app, available on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux, and the web. It’s built for capturing ideas in text, images, audio, checklists, sketches, and files.
Inside Notebook, each ‘Note Card’ adapts to the content you create. For instance, a Text Card gives you a distraction-free space to write, while Checklist Cards help you create to-do lists or organize items in a neat list.
For organization, drag notes into Notebooks with customizable covers, group them with tags, or stack related notes together for quick navigation.
And if you work visually, Noteboards (Kanban-style boards) let you arrange content as cards you can move around freely.
Zoho Notebook best features
- Record voice memos as Audio Cards that auto-transcribe into searchable text and highlight playback in sync with the recording
- Scan documents with your phone camera and save and export them as PDF files
- Create Video Cards that let you record your screen and yourself at once, including chapter markers and easy public link sharing
- Use AI Sketch Recognition in Sketch Cards to turn rough circles, rectangles, and arrows into perfect shapes for clean diagrams and mind maps
- Get Notebook AI to help with quick writing and grammar suggestions
Zoho Notebook limitation
- Users highlight issues, such as odd copy-paste formatting, lost paragraphs, and no markdown support
Zoho Notebook pricing
- Notebook Essential: Free
- Notebook Pro: $1.99/month
- Notebook for Business: $4.99/user/month
Zoho Notebook ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.5/5 (70+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (80+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about Zoho Notebook?
A Capterra reviewer says,
👀 Did You Know? Zettelkasten (‘slip-box’) is a centuries-old German method of linking small notes together—Niklas Luhmann used it to write over 70 books. 😱
10. Simplenote (Best for minimalist, distraction-free note-taking)
Simplenote is a minimalistic, distraction-free note-taking solution built around plain text and Markdown. That’s partly why it’s easy to use yet adaptable for everything from quick lists to personal knowledge management.
Its tagging system goes beyond basic labels by allowing nested tag structures, giving you a flexible way to categorize notes without locking them into rigid folders. For collaborative work, you can invite others to edit a note in real time, or publish it as a read-only web page with a single click.
On mobile, the widget lets you start a new note instantly without opening the app. Desktop users can also bulk-import from Evernote, Markdown, or plain text files to unify all their notes in one place.
Simplenote best features
- Use internal links to connect notes effortlessly with [[note title]] references
- Create nested checklists using GitHub-style Markdown syntax
- Engage Focus Mode to write without distractions with just a blank canvas and a cursor
- Sort notes by date created, date modified, and alphabetically
- Create notes directly through the Siri assistant in iOS devices
Simplenote limitation
- Users note a lack of organization, formatting, tags, and advanced features
- You can’t add anything to a note apart from text
Simplenote pricing
- Free
- Premium: $10 per year
Simplenote ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (30+ reviews)
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Simplenote?
A Capterra reviewer says,
Take Your Notes and Projects Further With
Google Keep is fine for jotting down quick thoughts, but when your ideas start to multiply, you need a space that can grow with them.
gives you that (and more). It’s a living workspace where every note can become a task, a project, or part of a bigger plan.
Its connected docs, real-time collaboration, and AI tools mean your information doesn’t get lost in a sea of scattered files. Instead, it’s organized, searchable, and ready to act on whenever you need.
bridges the gap between capturing ideas and executing them. It’s the platform that keeps pace when work moves fast, adapts to your style when priorities shift, and helps you see the big picture without losing the details.
👉 Try today and bring clarity, structure, and momentum to everything you
Sign up for to start making the most of each day. ☀️
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
