Notable

Notable transforms the piled-up mental chaos scattered across dozens of files into an organized knowledge base that can be searched instantly, through an approach that is both simple and rigorous at the same time: everything is text, and every text is yours alone, with no constraints and no intermediary servers.

What is the Notable tool?

Notable is a desktop note-management application that relies entirely on the Markdown format to organize knowledge, jot down ideas, and conduct academic research. Notable differs fundamentally from traditional note-taking tools in that it stores your notes as plain Markdown files with the .md extension on your local hard drive, which means your data is not locked into a proprietary format nor tied to the servers of any particular company.

The app was launched by independent developer Fabio Spampinato, and he designed it to be a flexible, lightweight alternative to applications like Evernote and Bear, while maintaining the highest levels of privacy and portability. The tool’s core philosophy revolves around one idea: your notes should remain readable and editable even after the application itself disappears. You can access the app and start using it through the official website notable.app, and it is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux in a rare move that provides comprehensive coverage across the three major operating systems.

Key Features of the Notable Tool

1. Hierarchical Tagging System (Hierarchical Tags)

Instead of the traditional folder system that confines each note to a single place, Notable relies on a tag system that supports hierarchical nesting. For example, you can tag a note with research/machine-learning/nlp and it will automatically appear under every level of this hierarchy. This enables flexible categorization so that a single note can belong to multiple contexts at the same time, unlike folders that restrict the note to an isolated location.

2. Dual Editor with Live Preview Split Pane (Live Preview Split Pane)

Notable provides a split interface that shows the raw Markdown code on the left side and the formatted preview on the right side instantly without noticeable delay. You can also switch to full preview mode or full editing mode as needed. The editor supports GitHub Flavored Markdown, including tables, checkable task lists, code blocks, and nested blockquotes.

3. KaTeX Support for Mathematical Equations

Notable supports displaying mathematical equations using the KaTeX library via the standard LaTeX syntax. Simply type $E = mc^2$ to display a formatted inline equation within the text, or use $$...$$ for standalone equations on a separate line. This feature makes Notable a truly practical choice for students and researchers in mathematics, physics, and engineering—an area where most other note-taking tools fall short.

4. Attachments Management (Attachments Manager)

Notable allows attaching files and images to notes while keeping them in a separate Attachments folder inside the main notes folder. When inserting an image via drag-and-drop or pasting from the clipboard, the app automatically creates the relative file path within Markdown, which keeps links correct and self-contained when moving or sharing the entire folder.

5. Comprehensive Full-Text Search (Full-Text Search)

The search engine in Notable provides full indexing of the content of all notes, showing instant results as you type. Search is not limited to note titles; it goes through their entire content. You can also narrow the search scope by filtering results by tags or note status (pinned, archived, completed).

6. Importing notes from other platforms

Notable provides an import tool for notes from Evernote via export files in ENEX format, with automatic conversion of the content to Markdown and preserving the original tags as much as possible. This makes it easier for users to migrate from Evernote without losing years of accumulated notes.

7. Focus Mode (Focus Mode)

By pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F, Focus Mode is activated, which hides the sidebar and the toolbar and keeps only the writing area visible, reducing distractions during long writing. In addition, there is an option to switch the interface colors between light and dark mode.

8. Highlighting code syntax for more than one hundred languages

The app supports Syntax Highlighting for more than one hundred programming languages within code blocks, from Python, JavaScript, and SQL to Rust, Go, and Kotlin. This makes it useful for developers who want to document their code or keep reference code snippets within their explanatory context.

How to Get Started with Notable Step by Step

1. Download and install the app: Go to notable.app and download the version appropriate for your operating system (Windows Installer, macOS DMG, or the AppImage package for Linux). Installation is straightforward and takes no more than two minutes.
2. Select the notes folder: When you run the app for the first time, it asks you to choose a folder on your device to store notes. It’s recommended to choose a folder inside Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive if you want automatic cloud syncing across multiple devices.
3. Create your first note: Click the “+” button in the top bar or use the shortcut Ctrl+N on Windows and Linux or Cmd+N on macOS. The note will open directly in the editor with a YAML header containing the title, tags, and creation date.
4. Add tags for organization: In the note header under the YAML Front Matter section, add tags like this: tags: [research, machine-learning, nlp]. The tags will appear immediately in the left sidebar under the “Tags” section, organized hierarchically.
5. Write content in Markdown: Use standard formatting: # for main headings, ## for subheadings, **text** for bold, - for lists, and ```python for code blocks.
6. Quick search: Use the top search bar or press Ctrl+P to quickly search for any note by title or full text content.
7. Export notes: Right-click any note to find options to export it as an HTML or PDF file, keep it as Markdown, or copy its formatted content to the clipboard.

Practical Advantages and Benefits for User Categories

For Researchers and Graduate Students

The ability to write mathematical equations with KaTeX and insert references in formatted text makes Notable an ideal environment for taking research notes. A researcher working on a doctoral dissertation can organize their reading notes under tags such as thesis/literature-review/chapter2, and later search through thousands of notes in seconds. The local file structure also means that their data is completely safe even if their subscription to any cloud service ends.

For Developers and Engineers

Syntax highlighting for more than a hundred programming languages makes Notable an excellent tool for saving reference code snippets. A developer working on multiple projects can tag their snippets with code/python/pandas or code/sql/optimization and access them instantly. Compatibility with Markdown files also means you can upload these notes directly as README files on GitHub or integrate them with Git version control to track the evolution of documentation over time.

For writers and journalists

Using Focus Mode with the simple text interface provides a writing environment free from visual distractions. A journalist investigating a particular case can organize their sources, field notes, and interview questions under tags related to the case, then search these notes by people’s or places’ names to quickly recall context while writing.

For technology professionals and personal knowledge management

The local file structure opens up the possibility of integrating Notable with Python scripts to analyze notes and extract statistics or generate automated summaries. This makes it suitable for building personal “digital memory” systems (Personal Knowledge Management) whose value accumulates over time.

Objective drawbacks and challenges

Absence of built-in cloud sync

The biggest limitation in Notable is that it does not provide built-in cloud synchronization. Unlike Notion or Evernote, accessing notes from multiple devices requires relying on an external service such as Dropbox, iCloud, or OneDrive. This adds an extra setup step and may pose an obstacle for non-technical users who expect everything to work out of the box.

The learning curve for those who don’t know Markdown

Users who are accustomed to rich-text editors like Word or Notion text boxes may initially find it difficult to remember Markdown syntax for formatting. It’s true that the editor provides some formatting shortcuts, but the experience remains less smooth compared to full WYSIWYG editors for those who haven’t yet gotten used to this syntax.

Limited Team Collaboration

Notable is primarily designed for individual use. There is no built-in support for sharing notes with others in real time or for collaborative editing, which makes it completely unsuitable for teams that need tools like Confluence or Notion in a collaborative context.

Development pace and the solo project

Notable is a project developed primarily by a single developer, which means a slower pace of updates and feature additions compared to platforms backed by full teams and substantial funding. Some features requested by the user community have remained on the backlog for long periods, which may frustrate users accustomed to the update cadence of Notion or Obsidian.

Absence of an official mobile app

There is no official app for iOS or Android. Users who rely on their phones for note-taking on the go will have to use a separate Markdown app on the phone that reads files from the same cloud folder, which complicates the workflow.

Comparison of Notable with Competing Tools

Notable vs Obsidian

Obsidian is the most prominent and most similar competitor in terms of its reliance on local Markdown files. Obsidian excels with the Graph View feature, which shows the visual relationships between notes as a knowledge graph, and the bidirectional links system (Bidirectional Links) that automatically connects notes to each other, as well as a huge library of community plugins. In contrast, Notable is lighter and faster in performance on devices with limited resources, and its interface is simpler and less confusing for those who don’t need a complex Zettelkasten environment.

Notable vs Notion

Notion is an integrated cloud platform that brings notes, databases, project management, and team collaboration together in a single tool. Anyone who needs teamwork or relational databases will find Notion a far better option. But Notable excels in complete privacy, performance speed, and the freedom to own your data, since your notes in Notion are tied to the company’s servers and remain dependent on an ongoing subscription.

Notable vs Bear

Bear is an elegant app exclusive to macOS and iOS, featuring a very polished interface and solid integration with the Apple ecosystem. Notable excels in compatibility with Windows and Linux, and in that its files are fully open. Bear offers an excellent mobile app, which Notable completely lacks.

Notable vs Typora

Typora is a pure Markdown editor that focuses on a smooth writing experience in a full WYSIWYG style. If you only want a clean Markdown editor without a note management system, tags, or search, Typora may be more suitable. But Notable provides greater value as an integrated system for managing a knowledge base, not just an editor.

Specific Practical Examples of Use

Scenario 1: Organizing Research for an Academic Thesis

A researcher working on a master’s thesis in natural language processing reads dozens of research papers weekly. In Notable, they create a note for each paper that includes a bullet-point summary, the mathematical model equations in KaTeX, and important quotes with their page numbers. They categorize the papers under tags such as thesis/papers/transformers or thesis/papers/rag. When actually writing the thesis, they search for a term like “attention mechanism” to find all relevant notes in seconds.

Scenario 2: Documenting Development Project Code

A web developer works on multiple projects with React, Node.js, and PostgreSQL. In Notable, they keep code snippets for solutions to common problems: setting up a Docker Compose environment, SQL queries for efficient pagination, or custom Webpack configurations. They format the code with syntax highlighting and add explanations and warnings alongside it. When encountering a problem that has been solved before, they find the solution within seconds instead of searching Stack Overflow again.

Scenario 3: Managing an Editorial Production Pipeline

A writer manages a tech blog using Notable to track article ideas through their different stages. She creates a note for each idea and tags it with blog/idea, then manually moves it to blog/draft when she starts writing, then blog/published after publication. In each note, she includes the references, statistics, and links used in the article to make future updates easier.

Scenario 4: Meeting Minutes and Decision Follow-up

A project manager uses a standardized Markdown template for all meetings: fields for attendees, key points, decisions made, and assigned tasks with the owner and due date. They categorize each project’s notes under a dedicated tag, and later search for a person’s name or a specific task to accurately verify previous decisions.

Pricing and Subscription Plans

Notable follows a relatively transparent pricing model:

• The historical open-source version: Older versions of Notable were open source and completely free, and they are still available on GitHub and run stably with all core features without restrictions.
• The current commercial version: In its newer releases, Notable switched to a perpetual purchase model at a fixed price (One-time Purchase) instead of a recurring monthly subscription, meaning you pay once and get the app along with its updates for a limited period.
• Trial period: Notable allows you to try the app for free for a sufficient period before deciding to purchase, enabling a real evaluation of the experience.

It is recommended to check the official website notable.app for the latest pricing information, as prices and plans may change between versions.

Comprehensive Evaluation and Tips for Users

This tool is suitable for you if:

• You work with Markdown regularly or are genuinely ready to learn it in a week
• You give top priority to the privacy of your data and prefer fully local storage
• You need to manage a large personal knowledge base that includes technical and mathematical notes and academic research
• You use Linux and are looking for a powerful alternative to Bear, which is limited to the Apple ecosystem
• You want to integrate your notes with a Git version control system or file-based automation tools
• You are a developer or researcher who needs technical documentation with code and mathematical notation in one environment

May not be suitable for you if:

• You work with a team and need real-time collaborative editing
• You primarily rely on your phone for taking notes on the go
• You want a relational database or features beyond text notes such as Kanban boards or calendars
• You are looking for a tool that works directly in the browser without installing any app on your device
• You want an “out-of-the-box” experience with cloud sync without additional setup

Tips to get started efficiently:

• Set aside one hour to learn the basics of Markdown before you begin; it will save you a lot of confusion later
• Put the notes folder inside Dropbox or Google Drive from day one if you work across multiple devices
• Create a clear and consistent tagging system from the start, such as separating levels with / to create a meaningful hierarchy
• Don’t overcomplicate the tagging system at the beginning; start simple and evolve the system as notes accumulate
• If you’re coming from Evernote, use the built-in import tool to move your archive before you start creating new notes

Summary and Recommendation

Notable is a specialized tool that performs its job excellently for a specific segment of users: those who want a powerful, fast, and private personal knowledge management system based on open, local Markdown files. It is not the ideal tool for everyone, and it does not claim to be, but for those it suits, it will be one of the most valuable tools in their daily arsenal.

What truly sets Notable apart is not a single feature, but the entire philosophy: your data belongs to you alone, its format is open and readable with any text editor, and its performance is fast and does not slow down as notes accumulate. In an era where platforms compete to lock users into their proprietary systems and make data hostage to subscriptions, this approach represents real value that goes beyond a feature list.

If you are a developer, researcher, or technical writer looking for a system to manage your personal knowledge while ensuring long-term ownership of your data, then Notable seriously deserves to be on your core tools list. Start by trying it through its official website notable.app and spend a week using it in practice with real data before making your final judgment.