Best Note-Taking Apps in 2026: Notion vs Obsidian vs Evernote vs Craft

Pricing verified July 20, 2026 against each vendor’s official pricing page. Scores are editorial estimates based on publicly available information, hands-on trial, and the scoring rubric described in How we review.

The average knowledge worker creates 11 notes per day and retrieves fewer than half of them ever again. The problem is rarely capture — it is that most note apps store your thinking in a format you cannot control, search poorly, or abandon the moment the company pivots its pricing.

We tested four note-taking apps — Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, and Craft — by running the same real knowledge workflow through each: importing a 1,200-note archive, building a linked research project with 60 interconnected notes, searching across three years of content, and syncing between a laptop, a phone, and a tablet over two weeks.

Here is what actually held up when the notes stopped being fresh and started being old.

At a glance

Tool	Starting price	Best for	Free plan	Score
★ Verdict Obsidian	$0 / $4/mo	Serious note-takers who want to own their data	Unlimited local notes, full editor	9.0
Notion	$0 / $10/mo	Teams wanting notes, docs, and databases in one	Unlimited blocks for individuals	8.8
Craft	$0 / $5/mo	Apple users who value design and speed	1,000 blocks, native apps	8.3
Evernote	$0 / $10.99/mo	Users wanting mature capture and web clipping	50 notes, 1 notebook	7.6

How we tested

Same archive, same devices, same daily habit. We imported 1,200 notes spanning three years, built a linked research project with 60 interconnected notes and 200 backlinks, and used each app as our primary knowledge base for 14 days across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. We measured:

1. Import fidelity — how much formatting, tagging, and structure survived the migration?
2. Search quality — could we find a note from two years ago in under five seconds?
3. Linking power — how easy was it to build and navigate a web of connected ideas?
4. Offline reliability — did notes open instantly with no connection, and did sync stay clean?
5. Data ownership — can you export everything to an open format without paying or losing structure?

The winner: Obsidian

Obsidian wins on a principle that matters more than any feature: your notes are plain markdown files in a folder you own. No proprietary database, no export paywall, no risk that a company shutdown deletes your thinking. If Obsidian disappeared tomorrow, your notes would still be readable in any text editor. That longevity is the single most underrated feature in this category.

The core app is completely free — unlimited notes, the full editor, graph view, and the entire plugin ecosystem. Paid features are optional add-ons: Sync at $4/month per vault for end-to-end encrypted cross-device sync, and Publish at $8/month if you want to turn notes into a website. You only pay for what you actually need.

The linking system is the deepest here. Wikilinks, backlinks, embeds, and the graph view make it trivial to build a genuine second brain. The community plugin ecosystem (1,800+ plugins) extends Obsidian into kanban boards, calendars, spaced repetition, and dataview queries — a level of customization no competitor matches.

The tradeoff is a learning curve. Obsidian is a toolkit, not a guided experience. New users face more decisions than they would in Notion or Craft. But for people who take notes seriously and want control that compounds over years, that investment pays off.

Best for teams and databases: Notion

Notion is less a note app and more a flexible workspace where notes are one block type among many. The same page can be a document, a database, a wiki, or a project board. If your notes need to grow into shared team knowledge, structured databases, or client deliverables, Notion handles that transition better than anything here.

The free plan is generous for individuals — unlimited blocks and pages, with a 5MB upload limit per file. The Plus plan at $10/month per member removes upload limits, adds 30-day version history, and unlocks unlimited file uploads. Business at $18/month per member brings SSO, private teamspaces, and granular permissions.

Notion AI is a separate add-on at $10/month per member, covering writing assistance, autofill database properties, and Q&A across your workspace. It is capable but priced on top of the base subscription, which adds up for teams.

The weakness is offline and speed. Notion is web-first; offline mode has improved but still lags native apps when opening large pages on a flaky connection. And while you can export to markdown, database structure does not survive the round trip cleanly — a real consideration for data longevity.

Best for Apple users who value design: Craft

Craft is the note app for people who care how their notes look and feel. Built natively for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS (with a web version for everyone else), it is the fastest and most polished experience in this comparison on Apple hardware. Pages render instantly, sync is reliable, and the block-based editor produces beautiful documents with almost no effort.

The free plan includes 1,000 blocks and the full native app set. The Plus plan at $5/month (unlimited blocks, version history, and family sharing) is one of the best values here. Family at $10/month covers up to 6 people, and Teams at $8/user/month adds shared spaces and admin controls.

Craft added AI features across its paid tiers — summarization, rewriting, and translation — without a separate add-on fee, which is a meaningful advantage over Notion. Its daily notes, backlinks, and shared spaces cover most personal knowledge workflows well.

The limitation is platform reach and extensibility. Craft is best on Apple devices; the web and Windows versions are less mature. And while it supports markdown export, it lacks the plugin ecosystem and deep customization of Obsidian. If you live in the Apple ecosystem and value speed and design over tinkerability, Craft is a superb choice.

The incumbent: Evernote

Evernote pioneered the modern note app, and its capture tools — web clipper, document scanning, and OCR search inside images and PDFs — remain genuinely strong. If your workflow is mostly clipping web content and searching across scanned documents, Evernote still does that well.

But the product has struggled to keep pace. The free plan has shrunk to 50 notes and a single notebook, which is no longer a realistic trial. The Personal plan at $10.99/month (billed annually) restores unlimited notes and notebooks, with Professional at $14.99/month adding advanced search and priority support.

The rewrite onto a modern codebase improved sync reliability, but the editor still feels dated next to Notion and Craft, and the pricing is hard to justify against a free Obsidian vault or a $5 Craft subscription. Evernote is a reasonable choice only if its capture and OCR features are central to your workflow.

Head-to-head: real-world results

Import fidelity

We imported a 1,200-note archive into each app.

• Obsidian: Best for markdown sources — files drop straight into a vault with zero conversion.
• Notion: Good for structured imports; some nested formatting flattened.
• Craft: Clean import for markdown and Evernote exports; minor block reflow.
• Evernote: Native ENEX import is solid, as expected.

Winner: Obsidian (for open-format longevity)

Search speed

Searching three years of notes for a specific phrase:

• Obsidian: Instant local search across the vault.
• Craft: Near-instant native search.
• Notion: Fast on good connections, slower offline.
• Evernote: Strong, especially for OCR content.

Winner: Obsidian (local search never waits on a server)

Offline reliability

Two weeks of daily use across laptop, phone, and tablet:

• Obsidian: Flawless offline; sync add-on kept devices consistent.
• Craft: Excellent native offline with clean sync.
• Notion: Usable offline but slower to open large pages.
• Evernote: Reliable after the rewrite, occasional sync lag.

Winner: Obsidian and Craft (tie)

Pricing value analysis

Normalized estimate of annual cost for a single power user on a comparable paid tier:

App	Plan	Annual cost	Notes
Obsidian	Free + Sync ($4/mo)	~$48	Core editor free forever; pay only for sync
Craft	Plus ($5/mo)	~$60	Unlimited blocks, AI included
Notion	Plus ($10/mo)	~$120	AI is an extra $10/mo if needed
Evernote	Personal ($10.99/mo)	~$132	Free tier too limited to rely on

Estimates based on annual billing for a single user. Actual costs vary by team size and add-ons.

Obsidian offers the lowest total cost because the core product is free and you only pay for the specific services you need. Notion and Evernote charge more for comparable core functionality, and Notion AI adds a meaningful premium for teams.

Who should use what?

Choose Obsidian if: You take notes seriously, want to own your data in plain markdown, value offline speed, and are willing to invest in a learning curve for long-term control.

Choose Notion if: Your notes need to grow into shared docs, databases, or team wikis, and collaboration matters more than local-first ownership.

Choose Craft if: You live in the Apple ecosystem, value design and speed, and want a polished experience with AI included at a fair price.

Choose Evernote if: Web clipping and OCR search across scanned documents are central to your workflow and you are comfortable paying a premium for them.

Our editorial verdict

Category	Winner	Score
Data ownership	Obsidian	9.5/10
Teams & databases	Notion	9.0/10
Design & speed (Apple)	Craft	8.8/10
Capture & OCR	Evernote	8.0/10
Value for money	Obsidian	9.2/10
Linking & knowledge graph	Obsidian	9.4/10
Ease of onboarding	Craft	8.7/10

Our overall pick for serious note-takers: Obsidian. Local-first markdown, a free core, and the deepest linking ecosystem make it the best long-term home for your thinking.

For teams: Notion. Nothing matches its flexibility when notes become shared projects and databases.

For Apple users who value design: Craft. The fastest, most beautiful native experience at a fair price.

---

Pricing verified July 2026 from official websites. Ratings are editorial estimates based on our testing methodology. We may earn commissions from links in this article, which does not affect our editorial independence.

Have questions or want us to test a specific tool? Contact us.