Workflowy
Shares rank 26 of 33 note-taking apps by recommenders
Recommended for fast, zoomable bullet-list note-taking, such as meeting notes. Critics point to closed source, cloud-only storage with no offline mode, and a high price.
Recommended for fast, zoomable bullet-list note-taking, such as meeting notes. Critics point to closed source, cloud-only storage with no offline mode, and a high price.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 4
- approval share
- 64%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Good for taking meeting notes
“Workflowy is great for taking notes in meetings”
Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?” Bullets and zoom like outliners
“Bullets and zoom like Workflowy.”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: • Introducing Dotflowy” Adds features beyond plain markdown
“The features it adds over plain text/markdown are worth the slight added complexity.”
Comment from 18 Feb 2026 in “I Use Obsidian”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Closed source, cloud-only, no offline
“since Workflowy isn't open source or plugin-based, I took things into my own hands”
Comment from 7 Jul 2026 in “Show HN: Workflowy but Open Source” “it's not offline and stores all data on their servers”
Comment from 13 Jul 2026 in “Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here”
Other note-taking apps people recommend
The four most recommended other note-taking apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 33 note-taking apps, rankedWhat people said
7 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the inability to email notes to it or otherwise push data to it from other sources was such a deal breaker”
“it's not offline and stores all data on their servers”
“since Workflowy isn't open source or plugin-based, I took things into my own hands”
“Bullets and zoom like Workflowy.”
“find the price far too high given that”
“The features it adds over plain text/markdown are worth the slight added complexity.”
“Workflowy is great for taking notes in meetings”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.