Safe Notes - Encrypted Notepad vs Standard Notes
Side-by-side comparison of two open source alternatives
Safe Notes - Encrypted Notepad
★ Safe Notes is an open-source project that aims to provide an encrypted, private note manager. ★ Employs rigorously tested AES-256 encryption standards to encrypt your notes. ★ Incognito Keyboard ★ Brute-force protection ★ Protection against data snooping via adb ★ Android background snapshot protection ★ Inactivity guard ★ Automated encrypted backup ★ Arctic Nord style dark and light theme ★ Customization for colorful notes ★ Seamless migration to new device. Use the backup to move your data from one device to another device. ★ Safe Notes provides ultimate security - you don't have to trust us, or any other third party because everything is done locally on your phone. ★ Contrary to the ongoing frenzy of "move everything to cloud" we believe in "localization of user data" giving you the control of your data and not some third-party cloud service provider. ★ Completely anonymous, no inbound and outbound requests. --- How it works --- ★ Safe Notes encrypt each note with a unique AES-256 symmetric key derived from your passphrase and randomly generated salt. ★ If an attacker tries to brute-force your encrypted notes it will take "Trillions Upon Trillions years" in contrast, the universe has only existed for 15 billion years. (You must use strong and long passphrase). ★ AES-256 is symmetric key encryption that is quantum-resistant, i.e. it isn't vulnerable to quantum computers. ★ Everything is stored locally on the user's device. ★ Your passphrase is never stored on the device, it gets purged as soon as you exit the app. ★ We can't decrypt your notes even if we wanted to. That gives you the ultimate security, but it also means that a lost passphrase can never be recovered. ★ Safe Notes is an open-source, not-for-profit project.
Standard Notes
Standard Notes is a secure and private notes app. It syncs your notes securely across all your devices, including your Android devices, Windows, iOS, Linux, and Web. Private means your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. Even we can't read the contents of your notes. Simple means it does one job and does it well. Standard Notes is a safe and lasting place for your life's work. Our focus is making it easy to write notes wherever you are and syncing them with encryption to all your devices. Our users love us for: * Personal Notes * Tasks & Todos * Passwords & Keys * Code & Technical Procedures * Private Journal * Meeting Notes * Cross-platform Scratchpad * Books, Recipes, & Movies * Health & Fitness Log Standard Notes comes free with: * Seamless sync across all your devices, with easy to use applications on Android, Windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web browsers. * Offline access, so you can access your downloaded notes even without a connection. * No limit on number of devices. * No limit on number of notes. * Passcode lock protection, along with fingerprint protection. * A tagging system to organize your notes (like #work, #ideas, #passwords, #crypto). * The ability to pin, lock, protect, and move notes to trash, which allows you to recover deleted notes until the trash is emptied. Standard Notes is completely open-source, which means when we say your notes are encrypted with industry-leading XChaCha-20 encryption, and that only you can read your notes, you don't have to take our word for it. Our code is open to the world to audit. We made Standard Notes simple because longevity is important to us. We want to make sure we're here, protecting your notes, for the next hundred years. You shouldn't have to find a new notes app every year. To sustain our development, we offer an optional paid program called Standard Notes Extended. Extended gives you access to powerful tools including: * Productivity editors (like Markdown, Code, Spreadsheets) * Beautiful themes (like Midnight, Focus, Solarized Dark) * Powerful cloud tools including daily backups of your encrypted data delivered to your email inbox every day, or backed up to your cloud provider (like Dropbox and Google Drive). You can learn more about Extended at standardnotes.com/extended. We're always happy to talk, whether it be a question, thought, or issue. Please feel free to email us any time at help@standardnotes.com. When you take the time to send us a message, we'll be sure to do the same.
| Feature | Safe Notes - Encrypted Notepad | Standard Notes |
|---|---|---|
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later | AGPL-3.0-only |
| Install sources | F-DroidGitHub | F-DroidGitHub |
| Categories | Password ManagerNotes | Password ManagerNotesProductivity |
| Features | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking | Ad-FreeOpen SourceNo Tracking |
| Platforms | Android | Android |
| Website | ||
| Source code |