Notion has been my default workspace for years. I like how sleek and flexible it is, and almost everyone I know in tech swears by it. I built my own little systems inside it, from personalized dashboards to practical databases. But the thing with software that’s feature-heavy: it becomes a drag to use and causes more problems than it solves. The downsides started piling up, and I also disliked how dependent Notion is on an internet connection, even for the simple stuff.

This pushed me to look for a Notion alternative, and one of my favorites turned out to be Joplin. It’s an open-source note-taking and to-do list app, plus it’s offline-first and built on Markdown. After some weeks of using it, I realized I wasn’t just testing it anymore — I’d pretty much swapped Notion out of my workflow. Here’s why Joplin ended up sticking…

Offline-first reliability

And local-first ownership

One of the freshest things about switching to Joplin is how easy it is to just open the app and start writing. Nothing in there takes forever to load, and you’ll never get a connection error. This is because Joplin is offline-first by design. Everything is stored locally, so your workflow isn’t tied to the quality of your connection. This sounds small, but it changes a lot. When I used Notion on the go, I’d sometimes encounter issues with loading my notes. With Joplin, I can write entire articles mid-travel without worrying about sync, and trust that everything is saved right to my device.

Local-first isn’t just convenient, it also gives you more control. Joplin still lets you decide how (or if) you want to sync: you can hook it up to Dropbox, OneDrive, or your own server for full independence. Unlike Notion, you’re not locked into a single vendor or a “take it or leave it” export. If Joplin disappeared tomorrow, my notes would still be safe as plain text on my devices, ready to move anywhere else. This also means Joplin fits perfectly into my old-school, plain-text stack.

Overall, Joplin just feels more trustworthy because the mix of offline readability, local storage, and syncing as an option turns note-taking from a rented service into something I own.

Markdown as the backbone

Your text files will outlast the app

Joplin doesn’t just support Markdown, it’s built on it. Every note I create is stored as a portable plain text file, which means there’s no hidden database or proprietary format holding my content hostage. The formatting is consistent, future-proof, and readable in any text editor. It sounds like a small technicality, but it actually solves a real problem. With Notion, Markdown is more like a layer on top of its own system. You can export your pages as Markdown files, but the structure doesn’t always translate perfectly; you will probably lose embeds and some styling.

Joplin avoids this entirely by making Markdown the foundation as opposed to a veneer. The payoff is great for how I work — long-term portability, the exact format I need and use every day, and having some degree of version control over my files. It’s just a different mindset from apps like Notion, which are polished now but fragile if the platform ever disappears. Again, if Joplin disappears, my notes are still just plain text; they’ll outlast the tool.

How I actually use Joplin

It fits perfectly into my productivity stack

The first thing you’ll notice about Joplin is its simple layout: a classic three-pane view with notebooks and tags on the left, your notebook pages in the middle, the editor on the right, and some tools in the top panel. The editor is toggleable between Markdown, WYSIWYG Rich Text, or a split view between both. Zero bloat; everything loads instantly.

Here’s how that translates into my day-to-day use:

• Article drafts - I have a notebook called “writing” and create a new note for every draft. Because Joplin supports both Markdown and a rendered preview, I can focus on writing in plain text, then quickly check the headers and such before moving the draft somewhere else. It’s very barebones, which allows for distraction-free writing.
• Project notes - For ongoing work, I make a notebook per project. The contents will vary depending on what I have going on, but it typically consists of research, learning materials, or other important nuggets of information. Markdown’s - [ ] syntax allows for quick checklists, and Joplin’s tags feature also comes in handy to find exactly what I’m looking for.
• To-do lists - Joplin has a super simple to-do list implementation. Instead of creating notes in your notebook, you can create a to-do list. The item in your notes list itself will have a checkbox, and you can expand on the item with text, as it still opens in the editor.

My use of Joplin is still evolving, so I'll probably eventually use it to log journal entries, meeting notes, and more. Right now, it fulfills its duty as a simple note-taking and to-do list app. It also handles import and export seamlessly, and lets me customize the layout.

Simplicity wins

What ties all of this together is the simplicity of the UI. Joplin isn’t trying to be a complex database tool or a full productivity suite; in fact, the feature set is very stripped-down compared to Notion. It’s just a plain digital notebook with a couple of extras to keep it organized and make it scale. For me, this ease and balance are why it replaced Notion.