passthejoe by Steven Rosenberg - Iotas

Is Standard Notes worth $90 to $120 a year?

2026-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Right now I'm in working on this post in Standard Notes</a>, one of the free-to-paid cross-platform notetaking apps.

You can export a text file and give it any suffix you want — even .md</code>, but this is a free/paid app, and you can only "see" Markdown rendered if you go to the first paid tier, called Productivity, which is $90. The Professional tier at $120 — a 33% increase over Productivity.

I like the app. Without a paid membership, it's pretty basic. And despite the pay-to-play nature of most of the features that take it beyond the basic "it's a text editor with autosave," the app</a> is open source under the AGPL 3.0 license. On the project's home page</a>, under "Standard Notes," it says, "Powered by Proton," which I think refers to the Proton Native framework</a> to create desktop applications using the same syntax as React Native, and not carrying a whole browser along with it like an Electron app.

Not only is the desktop app open-source, but so is the server, which is billed as "fully self-hostable."

So on the surface, this seems like a better way to get a cross-platform, "native" desktop app. Better than Electron, I guess, though I'm not an expert. There's still a bit of a delay when starting the app on my 9-year-old HP laptop. It takes about 12 seconds to launch on this hardware. It could be better for you. Could be worse. But the app is very responsive once loaded.

In addition to the desktop app, there's also a web app at https://app.standardnotes.com/, as well as apps for Android and iOS.

In April I signed up for a free account to see what I could do with Standard Notes? And now that it's May, I got an email from Standard Notes reminding me about what the app includes for free accounts:

Your free account comes with standard features like end-to-end encryption, multiple-device sync, and two-factor authentication. </blockquote> Then it reminded me about what I'm missing by not subscribing for $90-$120/year. Right now I'm in this note and wanted to search for a word. I couldn't figure it out. Ctrl-F doesn't do it. It turns out that search isn't available in text notes, the only kind you can create with the Free plan. You need to use Super Notes in order to make them searchable</a>, and that's a paid feature. With most of the desktop notetaking apps I'm using, including Iotas and QOwnNotes, I can search for something in all the notes. At least I was able to switch to dark mode. I can also give a note any name I want, and it will export with that name as the file name. All I have to do is replace .txt</code> with .md</code>. So for static-site blogging with Zola and Hugo, this is a solid choice. The Standard Notes app also has a Command Palette. Is it related to the last app with this feature that I tried? This must be a feature from Obsidian, or one of the other paid notetaking apps because I've seen it a few times now. You can type Markdown in Standard Notes, but it doesn't render. Markdown rendering is available, but it costs. At the risk of repeating myself, here are Standard Notes' three available plans: Free</li> Productivity: $90 per year</li> Professional: $120 per year</li> </ul> If you commit to 5 years, you get a "break": Productivity: $299 for 5 years</li> Professional: $349 for 5 years</li> </ul> If I loves this tool above all others, I'd pay. But I'm not sure. In addition to Markdown rendering, things like the ability to create checklists, spreadsheets, keep a daily journal, create folders and use a "Web Clipper" to save web pages as notes are all part of the $90 package. It's not a bad price, but it's hard to justify, especially if I can't test out all the features beforehand. Refunds are available within 14 days for the $90 Productivity plan and 90 days for the $120 Professional plan. Mimiri Notes</a> is at least somewhat comparable and only charges $12 per year. Standard Notes is objectively a better product, but is it $72 per year better? The problem is that in that time, I've been exploring using a hosted Nextcloud account for notes and note sync. I have a free account with TheGood.Cloud</a> for the next six months, and after that it's only $28 a year. It doesn't have the "advanced" notetaking features of Standard Notes, but it's also a lot cheaper and allows me to use other apps on Android and desktop for notetaking, calendar and general file sync. I'm not ready yet to boot Standard Notes out of the running as my notetaking solution, but I don't know if I need what it's offering, and $90 is above what I'm willing to spend as an individual for this service.



Iotas and Nextcloud Notes sync
2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00
One of the key features of the Iotas</a> notetaking app is the ability to sync with Nextcloud Notes</a>.</p>
I started a free-for-now Nextcloud account at https://thegood.cloud</a> to test this. Free</em> is a pretty good price for a 2 GB hosted Nextcloud account, and if I decide to stick with TheGood.Cloud after my 180-day trial, the service costs €23.88 per year for 10 GB. That's $28.11 USD. Not bad for a whole year. Unless I decide to start hosting some heavy duty files, I'll never get close to 10 GB. I can't even see getting to 1 GB.</p>
Once I got the Nextcloud account established, I went to Iotas and set up Nextcloud Sync. I was already logged in to TheGood.Cloud's web interface, and the sync immediately worked. I had the same notes in Iotas and Nextcloud.</p>
For most regular notes, including to-do lists, Nextcloud Notes is great. Writing and editing notes can be done in the Web interface as well as the Nextcloud and separate Nextcloud Notes</a> Android apps. It all works.</p>
The Nextcloud Notes Android app works a bit better for its own subset of Nextcloud than the overall Netxcloud app. I have both on the phone.</p>
And with all my notes in Iotas, I can export the individual Markdown-formatted notes to my Zola</a> blog's content directory on my laptop and then build and deploy the site. It would be the same for Hugo</a> with different front matter.</p>
After spending a few weeks looking at notetaking apps, I wasn't sure I needed syncing, but so far I'm doing quite a bit of writing on my phone. To that end, I found my old Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Both had severe battery corrosion, and the bin they went. It didn't matter. I'm using the phone and ... my fingers.</p>
When it comes to things like to-do lists, it's very</em> convenient to be able to access them on and sync them to mobile. Of course you can do this with Google Keep or other paid apps like Obsidian and Standard Notes, but there's a nice degree of flexibility with Nextcloud. You can use a hosted Nextcloud account, like I'm doing, or stand up your own Nextcloud server.</p>
The more I test the sync between Nextcloud's web view, mobile apps and my local notetaking apps, the more impressed I am with how well it works.</p>
In addition to blog posts and to-do lists, I'm also using the Notes app to save URLs I find when I'm on the phone. I just share a web page into Notes, and I can write about it later. I wish there was a way to do this with Nextcloud on the desktop.</p>
The main</em> problem I'm having with Iotas and Nextcloud Notes is about the rendering of Zola blog front matter</a>. I'm using tabs (which generally manifest themselves in my editors as spaces</em>) to preserve the TOML formatting, and Nextcloud Notes tends to strip out the spaces and some of the linefeeds. I haven't quite figured out this issue just yet, but I'm thinking about it.</p>


Why is it so hard (or impossible) to get a clean Markdown export out of Obsidian and Standard Notes?
2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00
What's the deal with exporting Markdown files out of two of the most popular notetaking apps, Obsidian and Standard Notes?</p>
Obsidian</a> can't (or more accurately won't) export an .md</code> file from the base system, and none of the plugins I've tried can do it right, which for me means without added escapes preceding the brackets that's are in my blog posts' TOML front matter.</p>
Standard Notes</a> doesn't even allow an export with the free plan.</p>
Meanwhile Nextcloud</a> offers file exports (in the form of downloads</em> via the Files app) just like the Linux desktop apps I've been using: Iotas</a>, QOwnNotes</a> and Folio</a>. And the files are ready to go into a static site generator, which in my case is Zola</a>.</p>


QOwnNotes and Iotas sync with Nextcloud in two different ways
2026-04-30T00:00:00+00:00
I just found out that QOwnNotes</a> doesn't handle file sync with Nextcloud</a> in the same way as Iotas</a>.</p>
Instead, QOwnNotes relies on the Nextcloud desktop app</a> to sync the Markdown files generated by QOwnNotes with those on the Nextcloud server.</p>
I've already been thinking of testing the Nextcloud app, even though it's not needed for Iotas, which does the sync on its own with flat files on the Nextcloud side and an SQLite database for Iotas.</p>
I'd still like to see how well Nextcloud sync works. A reliable, Dropbox-like sync system would be pretty nice. Until recently, I had no idea that sync — or a separate app that does it — was even part of Nextcloud.</p>
Even if I get sync working for QOwnNotes and Nextcloud, I don't think that Nextcloud will recognize the tags that QOwnNotes can give to notes, though that would be nice.</p>
Despite the hurdle of syncing with Nextcloud, some of the things I appreciate about QOwnNotes are:</p>

Notes are stored in plain text files instead of a database</li>
Notes can be stored in nested folders</li>
Notes can be further categorized with multiple tags</li>
</ul>
In contrast, this is the situation for Iotas:</p>

Notes are stored in a SQLite database. They only "become" actual files if you export them.</li>
Notes can have a single category</em>. They can't have multiple categories, and there are no tags or folders, though a Category in Iotas mirrors a folder in Nextcloud.</li>
</ul>


Iotas is a GNOME Circle notetaking app that is a pretty good fit for writing blog posts
2026-04-29T00:00:00+00:00
I originally wrote this post a few weeks ago, and since then Iotas has been updated to resolve a bug that caused the app to crash when exporting a file. With that fix and a couple of small tweaks to Iotas' Flatpak sandbox and app permissions, everything is working a lot better. That makes Iotas a contender, along with QOwnNotes and Folio, for my go-to app for static-site blog posts, general notetaking and list-making.</em></p>
The rewritten review starts here:</em></p>
Iotas</a> is as good an app as any for writing notes</em>. And after an update from the developer and couple of extremely easy fixes on the user side, I got the app to successfully export a Markdown</em> file, both into the app's Flatpak sandbox</em> and the rest of my /home</code> directory.</p>
With the bug fix and tweaks in place, Iotas is a true contender for writing posts for static blogs as well as overall notetaking and to-do checklists. At first glance, it seems like a simple app that draws on GUI elements already present in many other GNOME apps, and it kind of is that. But in a way, that's what makes it so good. There are a lot of things that developers can pull from the GTK toolkit, and Iotas manages to make an app with a familiar look and feel that is just different enough to fill a critical gap in the overall GNOME ecosystem for a notetaking app.</p>
There are two "tiers" of official</em> GNOME apps: GNOME Core</a> for the really official</em> ones, and GNOME Circle</a> for those at the level below that. Iotas is a GNOME Circle app. There is no GNOME Core app for notetaking in case you were wondering. I was.</p>
Iotas is distributed as a Flatpak, which is how I install most things in Bluefin</a> (and Aeon</a> and Silverblue</a> before it). I couldn't find a traditional Fedora package, though there is a Debian package</a>. I just installed Iotas on my Debian 13 desktop, and even there I opted for the Flatpak because I want the latest version, which fixes the critical (to me) bug involving file exports.</p>
The notes in Iotas are stored in a SQLite database, not in plain text files like many other notetaking apps. This should theoretically make for a less cluttered setup since there won't be a large number files on your drive.</p>
However, if you want to move all of the notes to another app, or just to a folder on your system, you'll have to export them. More on that below. As I say above (and below), exporting</code> from a notes app is key to using it to write posts for my Zola</a> blog. The process is the same for a Hugo</a> blog — or any site that works with text files.</p>
And like almost all notetaking apps, Iotas automatically saves your work as you go. That's a feature I really like. I had no idea that notetaking apps pretty much all do this. Again, I'm in favor. You don't think you need</em> it, and it probably wouldn't work if you are relying on Git to provide version control for your site. I do not use version control for my sites, and it turns out that I find the auto-saving to be a very valuable feature.</p>
Iotas is a Markdown-friendly app. You can switch modes between writing mode and Markdown Render</strong>. Why not both at once? That's how Folio</a> does it. I'm generally OK with seeing the Markdown markup</em> code when I write and only seeing the rendered Markdown formatting when I want to. The way Iotas does Markdown Render mode looks great. But you can't do any editing there, the notable (and useful) exception being the ability to toggle checkboxes. More on that below</em>.</p>
I like Iotas' presentation and even the font. I would definitely use this font in another notetaking app.</p>
Iotas has a feature called focus mode</em>.  When turned on, it only highlights the sentence you're working on. I've used text editors that highlight the line you are working on, but I've never seen an app highlight only a single sentence. While I could see myself using this, it could be more distracting that not.</p>
The app is already pretty clean in terms of its UI. It's not at all crazy looking like some notetaking apps.</p>
When I first started using Iotas, it would crash when I tried to export a note. That was a bit of a deal-breaker. But since then, the export</code> bug has been fixed, but I still needed a little tweak to make it work.</p>
After I got the Flatpak update with the fix, I tried to export any of the available formats (PDF, ODT, HTML, MD), I got a message saying that the export failed, and there was an error opening my exported file.</p>
So what was going on? Iotas was trying to do the export to ~/.var/app/org.gnome.World.Iotas/data/iotas/exports</code>, and the exports</code> directory didn't exist in the Flatpak sandbox location on my system. I created the directory in Files/Nautilus, and the exports to it started working immediately.</p>
The Iotas Flatpak ships more locked down</em> than many other apps. Unless you allow it, the Iotas Flatpak won’t write to your home directory outside of its Flatpak sandbox. For my blog posting, I needed to export to the blog’s content directory. I used Flatseal to add permissions for my home directory, and then I could export to the folder containing the .md</code> files for my Zola blog</a>.</p>
In addition to exporting individual notes, you can select everything in Iotas and then batch-export all of the notes. I tested this, and it dropped a folder with all of my notes in the app's Flatpak sandbox (~/.var/app/org.gnome.World.Iotas/data/iotas/exports</code>). It took a tweak to get there (more info below), and I still couldn't get the batch export into any other folder, though it's easy enough to move the folder after the fact.</p>
Aside from writing blog posts, I’m looking for a notes app not just for general notes</em> but also for to-do lists</em>. And to that end, Iotas does checkbox lists very well. This example looks very nice in the app (trust me):</p>
How to evaluate a notetaking app</h2>


Does it support Markdown?</li>

Will it export a file?</li>

Can it do checkboxes?</li>

The checkboxes are actually checkable in rendering mode. I wish that QOwnNotes had this feature</li>
</ul>
It does it with the Markdown checkbox formatting: - [ ]</code> and crosses out the line when you "check" the box:  - [x]</code>, both in writing mode and Markdown Render mode.</p>
I'd almost just use this app for checkbox lists, even though not being able to edit in Markdown Render mode is not ideal.</p>
While I figured out exporting</code> from Iotas, there is no way to import</code> notes. That's not a feature I think I need, but it's nice to have</em>. There's also no way to link notes together like in other apps such as QOwnNotes</a> and Obsidian</a>. Again, is this a feature I personally need? I've used it but can get along without it.</p>
Another thing Iotas is missing is the ability to either copy a note or use a template to create a new one. I have generic TOML front matter for Zola that I need to use every time, and either making a template that includes it, or being able to easily copy a note that contains it would speed my workflow. As it is, to write a blog post, I first have to open the front-matter note, copy the contents and then start a new note with it pasted in. It's not arduous</em>, but also not as streamlined as it could be. I understand that the nature of these notetaking apps, which save your work automatically, make save</code> and save as</code> functionality a moot point. But still, I'd like to somehow integrate my boilerplate TOML into my workflow in a seamless way. QOwnNotes does it.</p>
Overall, I like the way Iotas works. I thought I wouldn't like an app that kept its notes in a database as opposed to flat files. But exporting works so well. The Markdown translates perfectly. You'd think that would be a given, but I've seen at least a couple of notetaking apps that can't manage to export without screwing it up. Iotas even makes setting the file name easy: It uses the note title and adds .md</code>. And since note titles are user-editable in Iotas, that works perfectly.</p>
I have another post on Iotas almost ready to go, and unless it repeats all of the information in this one, I'll be publishing it soon. So far, Iotas is my No. 1 notetaking app, and I'm not sure if something else can unseat it at this point, though QOwnNotes is close.</p>
Later:</strong> I'm still having some issues with formatting of the front matter  on blog posts created with Iotas. Or the problem could be that I'm also editing these notes/posts with Nextcloud Notes. I'm not sure yet.</p>
What could happen:</strong> I might end up using notetaking apps for lots of things that aren't</em> blog posting and just write posts BEFORE adding front matter. That might be the direction I take with this "project"</em>.</p>

passthejoe by Steven Rosenberg - Iotas

Is Standard Notes worth $90 to $120 a year?

Iotas and Nextcloud Notes sync

Why is it so hard (or impossible) to get a clean Markdown export out of Obsidian and Standard Notes?

QOwnNotes and Iotas sync with Nextcloud in two different ways

Iotas is a GNOME Circle notetaking app that is a pretty good fit for writing blog posts

How to evaluate a notetaking app</h2> Does it support Markdown?</li> Will it export a file?</li> Can it do checkboxes?</li>