Simplenote

★★★★☆

Back when I used it, Simplenote was a solid alternative to Google Keep (cross-platform, but complicated) and iCloud Notes (simple, but only Apple platforms). It supports the basics (notes and tagging), syncs across multiple platforms (including mobile and desktop), and it’s run by a medium-tech platform rather than a big-tech platform. That said, you’re still trusting a cloud platform to not read your data. (It’s not encrypted at rest, only in transit.) I moved from Simplenote to Nextcloud Notes back in 2020 (where does the time go?) as part of my shift toward self-hosting as much as I can.

Simplenote’s future is cloudy, though. Automattic stopped developing new features last year, and they haven’t made any statement on how long they plan to continue maintaining the software or the sync service. On the plus side, the design goals were mostly met, although end-to-end encryption would have been nice.