Joplin vs Standard Notes: Which Is Better in 2026?

Two open-source, encrypted note apps — one built for power and freedom, the other for privacy without thinking. Joplin gives you everything free and lets you sync anywhere. Standard Notes encrypts everything by default and charges $90–$120/year for its paid plans. Here's how to choose.

The Proton Acquisition (April 2024)

In April 2024, Proton — the Swiss company behind Proton Mail, Proton VPN, and Proton Drive — acquired Standard Notes. Proton announced the deal on its own blog, pointing to shared values: end-to-end encryption in every product, open-source code, and growth without venture-capital funding on either side. Standard Notes had around 300,000 users at the time, and Proton said existing subscriptions and pricing would not change in the near future.

The encryption design means Proton cannot read your notes — the math doesn't care who owns the company. If you choose Standard Notes, choose it for the encryption architecture (which acquisitions can't break), not for the current pricing (which they can change). One correction for older reports: Automattic never owned Standard Notes — it bought the journaling app Day One, not this one.

The Core Difference: Encryption by Default

This is the single most important distinction. Standard Notes has encrypted every note by default since day one — the server has never received a plaintext note from any client, and the protocol has been third-party audited. You install it, and you're private.

Joplin's end-to-end encryption is opt-in. You must enable it manually in settings — and reviewers warn that users syncing via Nextcloud or Dropbox without enabling E2EE store plaintext notes on their server without realizing it. Joplin uses AES-256-CBC with a master key; Standard Notes uses XChaCha20-Poly1305. Both are solid — but only one protects you from your own forgetfulness.

Pricing: Free vs $90–$120/Year

Joplin: genuinely $0

Joplin (3.97 stars, 7.1K reviews) is completely free — every feature, unlimited devices, no ads, no tracking. Sync free via Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud, WebDAV, or S3; optional Joplin Cloud (€2.99–€7.99/mo) adds convenience and collaboration. 200+ community plugins extend it further. The total cost of a full Joplin setup: $0.

Standard Notes: free basics, paid plans at $90/yr and $120/yr

Standard Notes (4.59 stars, 8.5K reviews) is free for basic text notes: encrypted sync, unlimited devices and notes, offline access, passcode/fingerprint lock, tagging, two-factor authentication, and daily encrypted email backups. For more, the official plans page lists Productivity at $90/year (Markdown and rich text, the Super note type, spreadsheets, daily notebooks, folders, the web clipper, and 1-year note history) and Professional at $120/year (100GB of encrypted file storage, subscription sharing with up to 5 accounts, hardware security key support, and maximum revision history).

Features and Experience

Joplin: the power user's toolbox

Notebooks with tree hierarchy, tags, Markdown + rich text, LaTeX math, to-dos with reminders, OCR search inside PDFs and images, multimedia attachments, speech-to-note, and a web clipper for Chrome/Firefox. The desktop app is the star; the mobile UI is functional but dated — it hasn't had a significant redesign in years.

Standard Notes: calm minimalism

Intentionally simple: a clean editor, tags, pin/lock/trash, polished mobile apps on every platform. The philosophy is longevity — "a safe place for your life's work for the next hundred years." Power users may find it limiting; minimalists find it calming. The interface stays out of your way in a way Joplin's never quite manages.

Sync and Self-Hosting

Who Should Pick Which

Quick Comparison

Enabling Joplin's Encryption (Do This First)

If you choose Joplin, enable E2EE before your first sync:

  1. Open Joplin's Settings → Encryption.
  2. Enable encryption and set a strong master password — write it down somewhere safe. There is no recovery; lose it and your notes are gone forever.
  3. Wait for the master key to generate, then sync. All devices must enter the same password.
  4. Verify: the sync target should contain only encrypted blobs, never readable text.

The zero-knowledge trade-off applies to both apps: no password reset exists. Standard Notes' recovery flow is well-designed, but the principle holds — true privacy means nobody can rescue you, including the company. Use a password manager.

Migration: Evernote to Either

Both apps court Evernote refugees, and both import ENEX files. Joplin's importer is the most mature — it handles embedded images, attachments, and formatting reliably. Standard Notes imports cleanly too but expect to reorganize into its simpler structure. Either way: export from Evernote, import, verify a sample of notes (especially attachments), then cancel the old subscription. A weekend project, not a saga.

Daily Use: What a Week Feels Like

Joplin week one: you spend an evening choosing a sync method and enabling encryption, install two plugins, and then it fades into the background — fast capture, reliable search, notes everywhere. The dated mobile UI annoys you occasionally, then you stop noticing.

Standard Notes week one: you install it, it syncs, you write. That's the whole onboarding. The calm lasts until you want a Markdown table or code block — then you meet the paywall and decide whether $90–$120/year is worth it. Many users discover the free basic editor covers 80% of daily notes (quick thoughts, lists, journal entries) and never pay.

Longevity: Which App Outlives You

Standard Notes was explicitly designed for longevity — notes that survive decades — simple formats, open protocols, "a hundred years" of service. Joplin's plain Markdown files are equally future-proof: even if Joplin vanished tomorrow, your notes open in any text editor. Both beat proprietary formats decisively. The real longevity question is business model: Joplin's $0 + donations model has sustained it since 2017; Standard Notes' subscription model funds development but prices out free users. Open code means either can be forked — your notes are never hostage.

For Journalists, Lawyers, and Therapists

Professionals with confidentiality obligations need more than marketing promises. The checklist: default E2EE (Standard Notes wins — no setup to forget), audited protocol (Standard Notes has third-party audits; Joplin's is community-reviewed), open source (both), and jurisdiction (self-hosting either puts data under your own legal roof).

The professional pick: Standard Notes for client-facing confidentiality (default encryption, audited, simple), Joplin self-hosted for organizational control (your server, your rules, your backups). Either beats a plaintext cloud app that can be subpoenaed for readable notes. If you self-host: Standard Notes offers automated backups while Joplin's backup process is more manual — for serious self-hosters, that automation gap matters. Related reads: Logseq vs Joplin and best apps for writers.

The Third Option: Notesnook

Worth a paragraph because it changes the math: Notesnook combines Standard Notes-style default E2EE (XChaCha20-Poly1305, Argon2) with a modern UI, all editors on the free tier, and Pro at $4.49/month — less than half of Standard Notes. It's younger (fewer plugins, no WikiLinks yet) but it's the app both of these are now measured against. If neither Joplin nor Standard Notes feels right, try Notesnook before deciding.

Password Managers vs Encrypted Notes

A common question: "can't I just put passwords in my encrypted notes?" You can — both apps handle it — but dedicated password managers (Bitwarden, KeePass) do it better: autofill, breach monitoring, secure sharing, access controls. Use encrypted notes for everything else sensitive (journals, medical info, private plans, confidential work) and a password manager for credentials. The two tools complement; neither replaces the other.

That said, Standard Notes users often keep a "passwords & keys" tag for recovery codes and secrets that don't fit the password manager — Wi-Fi passwords, license keys, safe combinations. Encrypted, tagged, searchable. That's the sweet spot: credentials in the manager, everything sensitive in the notes.

Final Verdict

Pick Joplin if money or control matters most — it's free, open, endlessly flexible, and the encryption works once you turn it on (do that first, today). Pick Standard Notes if privacy-by-default and calm matter most — and you're comfortable paying $90–$120/year for the features that make it complete. Either way, your notes are encrypted, open-source, and yours — which puts both miles ahead of the plaintext giants. The wrong choice here isn't Joplin or Standard Notes; it's staying on an app that reads your diary.