15 Best Note-Taking Apps for 2025 (That Aren't Notion or Obsidian)

Summary

In this video, the creator shares their favorite note-taking and second brain apps. They explore various tools that enhance productivity, from Meot, an app for organizing thoughts and ideas with AI assistance, to X Styles, which combines the best of Notion and Miro. Other apps like Belo, Heptabase, and Cosmic offer unique features like AI-driven insights, mind mapping, and browser-based organization. The video also covers more traditional apps like Apple Notes and Notion, emphasizing their ease of use, AI integration, and task management. The creator reviews tools for different needs, from personal organization to team collaboration, encouraging viewers to explore these efficient, innovative apps.

Takeaways

• 😀 Meot is a second brain app that lets you save ideas, plans, and memories in various formats, offering AI-powered insights to highlight patterns in your thoughts.
• 😀 X stles is a customizable note app combining features of Notion and Myra, allowing users to build digital workspaces with easy task management, templates, and AI integrations coming soon.
• 😀 Belo is a powerful AI personal knowledge management tool that allows you to search, save, and organize information across the web and your personal notes in one place.
• 😀 Heptabase offers a unique mind-mapping approach to note-taking and organizing thoughts visually, with the ability to perform research and create connections between notes.
• 😀 Affine combines elements of Notion and mind-mapping apps, offering customizable whiteboards and writing tools with newly added AI features for generating mind maps and presentations.
• 😀 Cosmic is a digital workspace that integrates a browser with an infinite canvas, making it easy to save and organize digital content, with AI organizing and tagging your notes.
• 😀 Travers combines mind-mapping, flashcards, and linked nodes to help users study and remember key information by turning notes into flashcards and reviewing them.
• 😀 Saai offers an AI assistant to help with note-taking, task management, and research, offering a clean, intuitive interface for users to manage their knowledge and tasks.
• 😀 Lazy is a Mac-only note-taking app focused on speed, enabling users to quickly capture and save content from the web, including YouTube transcripts, with AI-powered features for saving and organizing notes.
• 😀 Notebook LM is a free note-taking app great for students and academics, focusing on AI-generated summaries based on your uploaded content like PDFs, Google Docs, and YouTube videos.
• 😀 Capacities blends the best aspects of Notion and Obsidian, making it easy to link and organize information with its object-based categorization system and visual graph of connections.

Q & A

What is Meot, and how does it help with second brain management?

Meot is a second brain app that allows users to collect thoughts, ideas, plans, and life moments in various formats, including text, voice memos, and saved links. It analyzes saved data to show highlights and connections between saved items, helping users identify patterns in their thinking. It is particularly useful for summarizing articles or YouTube videos and for writing and research.

How does X Stles stand out compared to other note-taking apps?

X Stles combines the best features of Notion and Myra, providing a customizable and enjoyable digital workspace. It allows users to create personalized setups with various widgets, task lists, and embedded content, such as Google Sheets or YouTube videos. It also offers templates for a wide range of needs, from organizing class notes to tracking goals, and integrates with Google Calendar.

What unique feature does Belo offer for personal knowledge management?

Belo is an AI-powered personal knowledge management tool that combines AI search, bookmarking, and note-taking. It allows users to search through various sources like Google Scholar and their personal library, saving relevant information for future reference. The app also provides AI-generated summaries of search results and helps with research and writing by offering relevant insights.

How does Heptabase help organize thoughts visually?

Heptabase enables users to organize thoughts visually on a digital canvas, allowing for the creation of mind maps and other visual structures. It is especially helpful for students or professionals working on complex topics. Users can make to-do lists, jot down ideas, and save content from the web, while its AI features offer insights based on the user's notes.

What makes the app A Fine different from other visual note-taking apps?

A Fine offers a blend of features from Notion and a digital whiteboard, allowing users to organize ideas in different formats. It provides tools for writing documents, making tables, and managing projects, as well as customizable whiteboard features for brainstorming and note-taking. The addition of AI tools for mind map generation and presentation creation sets it apart.

What is the purpose of Cosmic as a knowledge management tool?

Cosmic is a digital workspace that functions like a visual browser, enabling users to collect and organize notes, bookmarks, and web pages on an infinite canvas. It uses AI to automatically tag and organize saved content, helping users uncover connections between their ideas. It's useful for research, knowledge storage, and collaborating with other note apps like Notion.

How does Travers assist with studying and organizing information?

Travers is a study tool that combines mind mapping, flashcards, and linked nodes to help users organize and remember information. It allows users to create whiteboards for different topics and generate flashcards based on notes. It is especially useful for students looking for a more interactive way to study and review material.

What is the key feature of Saai that makes it an effective note-taking app?

Saai's standout feature is its personal AI assistant, which helps users search and chat about their saved notes. The AI suggests relevant knowledge from the user's library and generates answers based on the stored information. It also automatically tags notes, saving time and helping users stay organized.

What does Lazy offer that makes it a great note-taking app for Mac users?

Lazy is an efficient note-taking app for Mac users, offering quick note capture from anywhere, including web pages, articles, and videos. It can even capture YouTube transcripts with timestamps. Additionally, Lazy allows users to instantly interact with an AI assistant through keyboard shortcuts, making it easy to get answers or save quick notes.

Why is Notebook LM considered one of the best free note-taking apps?

Notebook LM is praised for its simplicity and free access. It uses AI to help users manage information from trusted sources, such as PDFs, Google Docs, websites, and YouTube videos. The AI generates useful summaries, study guides, or Q&A based on these sources, making it particularly valuable for students and researchers.