# Joplin 29 Hacker News commenters recommended Joplin and 9 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Free, open-source notes app with Markdown, to-do lists and end-to-end encryption that syncs to your own WebDAV, Nextcloud or S3 server. Critics find it heavy and say its data is not plain Markdown files. ## Why people recommend it - Syncs to your own server (6 comments): "I really like it as I run a webdav service and can read/write and sync notes between multiple Mac desktops and Android." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096968)) "I've been a huge fan of the fact that my backend sync infrastructure is my own self-hosted S3 bucket" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185319)) "share lists, notes, todos with family members via Joplin (stores data on my own WebDAV server)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46856659)) - Works across Mac, Android, iOS, Linux (4 comments): "I really like it as I run a webdav service and can read/write and sync notes between multiple Mac desktops and Android." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49096968)) "I could use it on macOS, iOS, and Fedora with synchronization via Dropbox." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46186517)) "Markdown, cross platform and good supports for todo lists." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197439)) - Free and open source (3 comments): "Joplin is open source, syncing setup between devices is one login to Dropbox, works for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48185945)) "Its completely FOSS and can sync with your private Nextcloud instance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826607)) "cross-platform FOSS notes app featuring E2EE" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47318572)) - Replaced Evernote for many users (3 comments): "I actually use Joplin, which I switched to after deciding I needed to dump Evernote." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46831018)) "every Evernote customer would be better off if they were using Joplin" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48854194)) "I finally switched from Evernote to Joplin" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50066021)) ## What people warn about - Heavy, slow, over-engineered (4 comments): "it works well but I'm not much of a programmer and probably ended up with a crazy over engineered architecture" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48238749)) "it ended up being too heavy for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47154125)) "it's slow and grouchy, a fairly poor Electron app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47275210)) - Data not stored as plain Markdown (3 comments): "Obsidian may not be open source, but its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48186158)) "But all the Joplin data is not in Markdown files sadly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47826802)) "the primary data store is SQLite, not files" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758866)) - Lacks nested folders, hard to organize (2 comments): "they are too complicated, bloated, not easy to organize notes" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49154389)) "no nested folders was a huge disappointment for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758375)) - Hard to leave, messy files (2 comments): "it spams up the md files, so that if you ever switch away from it you'd spend months cleaning them up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864506)) "It was mildly difficult to escape from even with the export features." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45867659)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Obsidian](https://hackerapproved.com/p/obsidian.md): 447 recommend - [Org mode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/org-mode.md): 175 recommend - [Notion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/notion.md): 91 recommend - [Logseq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/logseq.md): 52 recommend - [Apple Notes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-notes.md): 39 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Joplin", https://hackerapproved.com/p/joplin/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).