Standard Notes

What Standard Notes does

Standard Notes is a notes app for people who put privacy first. It runs on the web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android and syncs every note, tag and setting with end-to-end encryption. The free account already syncs across unlimited devices with plain text notes. Paid plans add richer editors, including the block-style Super notes, plus nested tags, encrypted file storage, long-term revision history and daily encrypted backups sent by email.

Notes can be locked individually with a passcode, and the apps support a passcode or biometric lock. Through Listed, the developers’ companion service, notes can be published as a simple blog.

Security and encryption

All app data is encrypted on the device with XChaCha20-Poly1305, and keys are derived from the account password with Argon2id. The encryption specification is public, and the company says the apps have been independently audited. Because the server only stores encrypted data, the account password is what protects your notes, so it needs to be kept safe.

Exports can be encrypted or plain, which makes it possible to keep a readable backup outside the app.

Moving from Evernote

The importers in the source code handle Evernote, Google Keep, Aegis (an authenticator app) and HTML files.

Self-hosting Standard Notes

The sync server lives in its own GPL-3.0 repository, and Docker is the only supported way to run it. The official guide was written on Ubuntu 22.04 with 2 GB of RAM and one CPU. The current server runs as several containers, with MySQL, Redis and LocalStack (used for queues) alongside the server itself. A static build of the web app can be hosted too.

Self-hosting does not unlock everything. Server-side premium features can be switched on by adding a subscription row to the database, but the client-side ones, such as Super notes and nested tags, still need a purchased offline plan.

Hosted version

The developers run the default sync service. The free tier gives encrypted sync on unlimited devices; paid plans add the editors, file storage, backups and history described above.

Limitations

Many of the features people compare against Evernote, such as rich editors, nested organization, file storage and long revision history, are behind the paid plans, even when you run the server yourself. There is no real-time collaboration or shared workspace. The self-hosted stack involves more moving parts than the app’s simplicity suggests.

Who it suits

Standard Notes fits people who value a documented, audited encryption design over features, and who are happy with a clean writing space rather than a full knowledge base. Those who need richer formatting without paying, or a large importer list, should compare Notesnook and Joplin.