The Best Butterfly Alternatives in 2026

Linwood Butterfly provides an endless workspace for handwriting, sketching, annotating, taking notes, and organizing ideas.

Xournal++ supports handwritten note-taking and PDF annotation on Linux, macOS, and Windows, including pen input from devices such as Wacom tablets.

A fully open source and end-to-end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote.

VNote is a Qt-based open-source note-taking application that combines note management with editing for Markdown, Typst, plain text and code, mind maps, and PDF reading on Linux, Windows, and macOS.

Standard Notes is an end-to-end encrypted note-taking app for capturing notes and files, according to its repository description.

Org-roam is a Roam-inspired note-taking project built around Org-mode, as stated in its repository description.

SiYuan offers a self-hosted knowledge workspace described as open-source and privacy-first, with collaboration for people and AI agents.

TidGi is a desktop knowledge-management and note app with automated Git backups, according to its repository description.

Note Discovery describes itself as a self-hosted knowledge base, according to its repository page.

Simplenote Electron provides the Simplenote app for Web, Windows, and Linux, according to its project description.

Saber supports handwriting in an open-source app designed for use across platforms, according to its project description.

This repository implements an open-source alternative to NotebookLM with additional flexibility.

SilentNotes synchronizes notes between Android and Windows devices, according to its repository description.

WikiDocs is a flat-file wiki built with Markdown and does not require a database, according to its repository description.

Trilium Notes supports building a personal knowledge base, as described by the project page.

DokuWiki provides an open-source wiki engine, according to its project repository.

KeyNote NF offers a tabbed notebook with a rich-text editor, nested notes, and encryption, according to its project description.

Obsidian Web Clipper highlights and captures web content, saving it as Markdown files that can be read offline.

SwarmVault combines a local-first LLM wiki with a knowledge graph, RAG knowledge base, and agent memory store.

Memos provides a self-hosted timeline for short notes, which users can later find by search, tag, or date.

Manage knowledge and collaborate with Logseq, an open-source platform described by its project as privacy-first.

Manage Markdown knowledge bases with Tolaria, a desktop app described by its project page.

Docmost is open-source collaborative wiki and documentation software for teams.

Collect, read, annotate, and archive web pages with Linkwarden, an open-source bookmark manager that can be self-hosted.