OpenNotes vs Pyramid Notes

OpenNotes is a simple, free, open-source notes app built for handwriting, PDFs, and focused organization. Create notebooks, import PDFs, write with Apple Pencil, add images or text, organize notes into folders, and export your work when you need it. OpenNotes is local-first and privacy focused. There are no accounts, no analytics, and no tracking. Your notes live on your device, with optional backup to your own iCloud so they survive a lost iPad or a deleted app. Nothing is ever sent to us — your notes stay in your Apple account, readable by no one else.

Pyramid is a quiet and private place to write your notes, synced automatically between your phone and Mac. You write. It saves. Everything lives as plain Markdown on disk. Real .md files in iCloud Drive, sitting in a folder you can open in Finder and read with anything. Notes, lists, half-formed thoughts, the daily log you keep meaning to keep. All your own data, completely portable and yours. The formatting stays visible while you write, so a heading looks like a heading and a bullet looks like a bullet, and nothing hides behind a menu. Turn the syntax off if you'd rather not see it. Put a checkbox anywhere and it becomes a todo. Pyramid finds them all, across every file, and tells you which line each one came from. Tag things. Nest the tags if it helps: personal can have daily underneath it. Search reads the insides of your files, not just their names. It syncs through iCloud on its own. Nothing to set up, no account to make, no settings to go and find. A small number of things, done plainly, and then it gets out of the way so you can focus on your work.