Joplin is free, and so is the sync, if you already own the storage

81 puts Joplin in our Strong band, level with Logseq and just behind Obsidian at 83, and it gets there by a different route. Generosity is 90, the second highest in this category, because what is free is not only the app but the sync, and sync is the thing this category actually charges for.

Freedom at 92 comes from the same place: AGPL-3.0, notes in Markdown with attachments on your own disk, storage you already own, and Joplin Server self-hostable in Docker if you want the sharing features without the hosted bill.

Feature depth at 76 is where it sits lower than Obsidian's 92. Joplin reproduces the Evernote workflow (notebooks, tags, attachments, a web clipper, an ENEX importer) and does not attempt the knowledge-base half of this category. No backlinks, no graph view. If linking notes to each other is the point of your system, this is the wrong tool at any price.

Sentiment at 58 rests on one score, G2 4.8 (checked 24 July 2026), with no Trustpilot or Capterra profile on file. A single provider is not a pattern, however high the number.

The apps have no note limit, no device limit and no feature gate (as of July 2026), so these are the real constraints.

Encryption is off by default. End-to-end encryption is a setting you turn on, after which notes and attachments are encrypted on your device before reaching whichever sync target you use. Local files on disk stay unencrypted unless you enable it. People assume otherwise, and assuming otherwise while syncing to a third-party cloud is the mistake this section exists to prevent.

You own the sync target. Free sync means Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV or S3, which means their storage limits, their outages and their bills apply. Self-hosting Joplin Server in Docker removes the middleman and hands you a deployment to patch and back up.

The interface is functional rather than pleasant. Next to AFFiNE or Anytype it looks like a decade-old application, partly because it is.

Search is literal and slow on very large collections, noticeably behind Evernote's, which matters if you are migrating an archive rather than starting fresh.

Web clipping is good on articles and unreliable on heavy JavaScript pages and paywalled sites, so test the specific sites you clip from before treating it as a like-for-like Evernote replacement.

One more thing worth knowing on the editor: the Markdown mode is solid, the rich text mode is weaker, and switching between them can mangle complex formatting.

Joplin Cloud Basic is EUR 2.40 per month billed yearly (EUR 2.99 monthly) for 2 GB of storage and a 10 MB maximum note size. That is the first paid step, and it is unusual in this category because it competes directly with a free option Joplin itself built and documents.

What you are buying is not access, it is not having to configure or maintain anything. Whether that is worth roughly EUR 29 a year depends on how much you enjoy managing a WebDAV endpoint.

Higher tiers do add capability rather than just space. Pro at EUR 4.79 per month billed yearly (EUR 5.99 monthly) brings 30 GB, a 200 MB note size, notebook sharing, publishing and email-to-note. A 100 GB Pro tier is EUR 7.99 per month billed yearly. Teams is EUR 6.69 per user per month billed yearly (EUR 7.99 monthly) with a two-user minimum, 50 GB, user management and consolidated billing. Notebook sharing is the feature that most often justifies the jump, and self-hosting Joplin Server gets you the same sharing on your own hardware for the price of running it.

All Joplin Cloud prices are in euros, which is worth noting if you are comparing against dollar-priced tools elsewhere on this site.

Yes. Unlimited notes across unlimited devices, on every platform, with encrypted sync to storage you already pay for, and none of it behind a plan. In a category where sync is the standard upsell, that is the strongest version of free on offer here.

Who lives on it indefinitely: people leaving Evernote who want notebooks, tags and a clipper to behave the same way, anyone with a Dropbox or Nextcloud account already, self-hosters running Joplin Server in Docker, and anyone who wants a terminal client, which Joplin actually ships. Who should look elsewhere: anyone who wants a modern writing surface, because the interface will disappoint you daily, and anyone building a linked knowledge base, because there are no backlinks and no graph.

Before you commit, turn encryption on. It is off by default, and the free sync routes put your notes on somebody else's server.

For the knowledge-base half of this category, Obsidian's free plan is the comparison. If you are migrating, free Evernote alternatives puts Joplin against the tool you are leaving, and best free note-taking and docs tools ranks the category.