Vanta vs ZenNotes

Vanta is a private Markdown notes app for iPhone with AI that runs entirely on your phone, and real GTD built in. Your notes stay as plain Markdown you own. Start with a local vault in seconds: no account, no servers, nothing uploaded. ON-DEVICE AI • Turn a messy, rambled note into clean Markdown • "Clarify with AI" sorts your whole GTD inbox into Next Actions, Waiting For, Someday, Done, or Trash • Clean up dictation, summarize, and suggest tags • Powered by Apple's on-device models, so it works offline and nothing ever leaves your phone GETTING THINGS DONE, BUILT IN • Capture to your Inbox in a tap, by typing or voice, even from the Share Sheet • Process your inbox to zero, by hand or with AI • Next Actions by @context, plus Waiting For, Someday, and Projects • A weekly review that surfaces stalled projects and what you're waiting on • Inbox and Next Actions pinned to the top of your vault A REAL MARKDOWN NOTES APP • Folders, favorites, and instant full-text search, all offline • Syntax-highlighted code, callouts, tables, images, SVG, and tasks • Tap [[wikilinks]] to jump between notes, and see backlinks • Light and true-black dark themes YOURS, EVERYWHERE • Start on-device with no account • Sync across your devices with iCloud, or your own private GitHub repo • Obsidian-compatible: open the same vault on your Mac, and favorites sync with Obsidian bookmarks • No subscription. No analytics. No tracking. Vanta works great as a standalone local notes app, and plugs into your existing Obsidian or Markdown vault whenever you want. On-device AI features require an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence.

ZenNotes is a local-first markdown notes app for writing, organizing, and connecting ideas without giving up ownership of your files. YOUR NOTES, YOUR FILES Every note is a plain .md file in a vault you control. Start with storage on your iPhone or iPad, use iCloud Drive, or open a folder through the system document picker. Local and iCloud vaults work without an account. ZENNOTES CLOUD Connect an optional ZenNotes Cloud plan to: • Sync a vault across ZenNotes desktop and mobile • Sync notes and attachments • Create manual and automatic daily backups • Restore a full vault or a single note from a backup • Publish notes to the web and manage their public links Cloud never replaces the free local-first workflow. Use it only when you want hosted sync, backup, or publishing. WRITE IN MARKDOWN Use a focused editor with headings, lists, tasks, tables, code, links, wikilinks, tags, callouts, footnotes, and frontmatter. A mobile formatting bar keeps common actions close to the keyboard, and a pinch resizes the text to your eyes. RICH, OFFLINE PREVIEW Render KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, JSXGraph, function plots, tables, callouts, and more directly on your device. ORGANIZE YOUR WAY Pin your go-to notes and folders to the top, swipe rows to act on them, create and rename nested folders, browse tags, search the full vault, manage tasks, create periodic notes, and work with table databases stored as CSV. CAPTURE QUICKLY Create a quick note from the app or send text and links to ZenNotes from the iOS share sheet. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Start a note, open a recent one, or check today's tasks without opening the app. New Note also lives on the Lock Screen, and the widgets wear your theme. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT ZenNotes has no advertising or tracking. Local and iCloud notes stay in the storage you choose. When you enable ZenNotes Cloud, the account identity, connected-device information, and vault content needed for the Cloud features you use are sent to the ZenNotes service. Payment details are handled by Stripe. ZenNotes is open source. Your vault remains useful outside the app because it is made of ordinary files.