26th Feb, 2024
A list of the best second brain apps for note taking, including tools like Notion and Evernote. Find the best second brain note taking app and pair it up to your way of note-taking and the powerful Second Brain ideology.
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The Second Brain concept has been growing rapid over the last 10 years, and no more so than the last 12 months, with the release of Tiago Forte's book "Building a Second Brain".
This vision to get yourself organized without using your mind as the only tool is becoming much more prevalent in a world full of productivity-AI tools and continues to be a way millions structure their notes, ideas, thoughts & workload for better focus.
Think of the second brain concept as a way to duplicating your brain.
This concept helps to store your ideas, thoughts and work in your digital second brain to avoid information overload and burnout, and better use your "first brain" to think & do.
The second brain concept was created by Tiago Forte and designed in an attempt to relieve his brain from remembering everything, organizing and managing thoughts.
Now you know the concept, the structure is popular for those who want to organize the second brain with apps. Note-taking apps in particular can helpful to creating the perfect digital brain more so than to-do list apps or project management software.
If you're in the hunt to learn the entire Second Brain concept, there's now a course.
Aligned best with the concept, we picked these second brain tools for these reasons:
The tools in this list are all great for note-taking but serve different purposes with different features. It all depends on how you want to build your second brain note-taking app. If it helps, we've made a full guide to these Second Brain note-taking apps on YouTube.
Our most recommended tools to meet your requirements:
Notion is one of the most popular second brain apps on the market these days.
The reason behind is due to the rise of people using Notion in the last few years, all who have found that the experience is super flexible for building whatever they want including the likes of a second brain experience for their notes and even team brain.
People really thrive with Notion as they can customize the experience once they've learnt Notion to make their second brain feel customized, and tailored to how they work. This comes in the form of custom pages, covers, and total control of your databases.
Notion is worth it if you can learn it, then adapt it to your liking. Many people have flocked to the Second Brain templates build by people like Easlo and Thomas Frank that both are well-built and save you time making the initial base for your ideas to go in.
Once you've learnt the concept of databases, Notion can be super customizable to your liking including setting up the perfect PARA systems within Notion for better capture.
In 2023, Notion added Q&A AI allowing you to scan across all your Notion databases and documents to retrieve information. This perfectly plays in Tiago's CODE concept that can allow you to resurface important learnings and notes using AI technologies.
Evernote used to be the best second brain note-taking app, ever.
Before Notion, and the others listed below arrived on the scene, Evernote was really common amongst hardcore Second Brain community thanks to the extensive annotation features and abilities for capturing notes. But now, times have changed.
Whilst Evernote is back up growing since their acquisition by Bending Spoons, it does still remain as a good all-round way to take notes and begin to organize your second brain.
Evernote is probably best suited for more traditional note-takers.
The structure of Evernote is desired in a busy world as you can organize your folders using the PARA concept and now, more recently, search notes using the AI-powered search for better recall of important notes from the past. Evernote also allows for document, files, image and audio recordings to be associated with notes for better access.
There are templates that you can use within the Evernote template gallery to replicate the Evernote second brain structure, but largely, it won't be as flexible as the likes of Notion.
But for many people looking for good OCR note scanning, capture abilities with Evernote Web Clipper and the lightweight way to add tasks and Google Calendar events, Evernote could be a more orderly, structure all-round second brain app for them.
Obsidian describes themselves as a private and flexible writing app.
For many, Obsidian is the best PKM focused second brain app as it brings the power of networked thought with the traditional note-taking feel. These are commonly referred to as PKM tools and we've listed many of them because they make nice second brain apps.
Obsidian stands at the balance between Evernote and Notion in terms of complexity, but for many Second Brain adopters, using Obsidian's features like graph view (for viewing how notes connect), backlinks (for connecting notes together) and canvas (below) are a welcomed set of advanced note-taking features for going deeper with ideas.
Obsidian is a great all-rounder in the PKM note-taking space.
In our opinion, this space is reserved more for the advanced note-taking community, ones who want to do more with their notes, typically researchers and those who think in terms of building connections. Before you dive in, do explore how networked thought works and operates and if it aligns with how you think, it'll make a good second brain app.
Obsidian is free and for those who want to go online to store their notes, sync costs $10 per month, which is fairly inline with the cost of note-taking apps these days.
Reflect is a good second brain app, it resembles a PKM software but with a friendly feel.
Whilst this application charges $10 per month (annual), this application presents a solid release cycle, new features to expand line-up like tasks and Google Calendar connection. Many people also like how in Reflect you can connect it up with the likes of Amazon Kindles so that you can better save notes and bring them into your second brain system with ease.
Reflect is reserved for the iOS and macOS goers, but it does have a neat Chrome and Safari clipper for better saving. One element of Reflect that goes unnoticed is the focus on privacy and security, with encrypted notes being one of their key priorities.
Reflect is a more premium PKM tool for second brain use.
If you're open to the cost, per month, which isn't more expensive than Evernote, and on par with the Obsidian Sync pricing, Reflect is a good tool for your second brain. It reminds us of an approachable PKM tool, which in layman's terms means you can get without the need for lengthly courses or implementation.
Daily notes is a nice addition in Reflect and the newer releases of tasks continue to expand the Reflect line-up for managing everything in your second brain.
Logseq is a super in-depth application for saving notes, thoughts, ideas and anything you want or will need in the future. This app does take some time to learn and get used to, but once you have wrapped your head around it, Logseq is a second-brain app loved by many note-takers.
Logseq and Obsidian are very similar in nature and Logseq is another brilliant Second Brain note-taking app that you will love for connecting ideas together. Logseq has a great library of themes, plugins and a growing community of supporters who share how they use it with the Second Brain concept. So this is a good one, one to discuss, Obsidian and Logseq.
Here's a good chat with their community team and Tiago about use for Second Brain:
Milanote is great for visual thinkers and learners, providing a good choice of second brain app for anyone who would rather save more visual notes and ideas rather than just linked notes between each other. This is going to take some getting used to as notes don't sit like they do inside of the canvas and are perfectly searchable like other apps do in this list.
Milanote is much better if you like to plan notes & projects at the same time.
Here's some of the best bits of Milanote that make it special:
Milanote is perfect for Second Brain if you know you're a visual thinker. Those who find it difficult to express ideas and bring them together will love apps like Milanote. Tiago shares how he could use Second Brain to manage in this video below, we'd recommend watching.
Mem is a strange note-taking application as it focuses more on your connection with notes and AI technologies. It uses your notes and brings them into a chat like experience to help communicate with your notes & AI for better output.
For example, you can add many notes about your day-to-day business operations and then ask your notes questions like "what do you think the biggest issue is with how I do things" and it will help compile a recommended answer based on all your notes taken.
If AI is not for you, then no. If the concept is too intense, Mem might not be for you. We'd say Mem best serves people that want to build a relationship between their notes taken and their AI assistant.
For people that want to enhance the expression side of their CODE system in Second Brain, then this could be a good way to re-surface notes for better absorption or seeking out truths later on.
Capacities Notes wants to be the studio for your mind by offering a unique way to take notes with objects in mind. Objects help structure a note from the core by offering repeatable note templates that save time and effort. Think "book" capture for learnings from books, this might save you time knowing you are adding a book as an object and building from that.
This is much more approachable for people who want to get into PKM apps but don't know how to get started. Capacities bridges the gap between complex and simplistic.
Capacities is much like Notion but with a twist, the focus on objects within your notes can be very helpful for creating structure, building relationships and adding notes fast. The first few weeks of setting up your Second Brain in Capacities might be intense, but the payoff will be much greater than many of the other apps in this list - as the system is set up for your types of notes that live as objects.
Workflowy wants you to organize your brain by using an outliner concept.
Unlike the second brain apps on this list, Workflowy uses something called outliner notes which are text based notes that expand as you click into them. This is a concept that is something that has evolved into full fledged notes apps, but people still use and love for simple and nested notes that are designed to be more organized.
Workflowy has kanban boards, tags, live copy features - which all help you expand notes and use this outliner for bringing and capturing your best ideas, thoughts and notes into a tidier system than your first glance. Worth looking at for more simple second brain use.
Great for bullet based powers, Workflowy is simple and called an outliner for a reason. Second Brain users won't find it as valuable as others thanks to the lack of focus on media and file upload, but still perfect for those who want to keep things simple and concise.
Many people turn to notes app that allow for better research and data collection and Heptabase is one of those for your notes.
The visual canvas allows you to connect the notes you're working on but largely the notes allow for better research collation and curation. Many visual thinkers and researchers find that this is one of the best second brain apps for that combination.
If you're torn between Milanote and this, you're clearly thinking visual note-taking as a concept to use. For Heptabase, it works very well with those who are researching and for many that is a popular use case for the Second Brain concept.
We'd recommend exploring our list of the best visual note-taking apps to go deeper as many of them too, map to the Second Brain concept.
Amplenote is a GTD dream.
The combination of notes, tasks and calendar management is something people really love with Amplenote. The note-taking abilities are really good, despite the design not being a "sexy" as apps like Notion or Obsidian. The software works well to balance those three parts of your productivity and house them in one. The ability to backlink, connect tasks and capture allows for a super second brain layout.
For housing everything, Amplenote is a great tool that works like Evernote but with more superpowers packed in. For those who have used Evernote and want an alternative to it, Amplenote is one of the best ones - and it presents a good house for your Second Brain with the intense stuff like linking notes & the bonuses like task management too.
Let's narrow down the recommendations for you to make the perfect one.
Obsidian and Notion are both superb applications for more general use and very innovative when it comes to updates and releases, meaning you get better and greater reach.
Both Heptabase and Milanote win here. They provide a great visual canvas to manage your notes and ideas in a visual space. People also like Obsidian for this too with canvas mode.
Better for those who want more structure, Amplenote & Evernote do a good job at this and we'd recommend looking at both of them, even noting Evernote's pricing leaps.
Both of these apps are heavily invested in notes + AI. We'd say that Mem and Evernote in 2024 will have the biggest leaps for AI technologies within notes apps, if that's your thing.
You can use anything really. A great starting point is using a notes app or notebook.
Both work very well and can be your central base for all your notes. All this Second Brain software is helpful but why use the system?
The best, and probably only way to build a successful second brain system is to use a suitable application for storing endless notes, thoughts, ideas and snippets.
Of course, you can stick with traditional ways of keeping notes and ideas in a mountain of notebooks for different categories, but the chances are you will still forget, lose the notebook, or spend too much time trying to find a specific note.
By using an app you can organise your notes using the simple CODE and PARA method. To recap here's what they mean...
Second Brain apps also come with search abilities, so if you know you previously made a note about something you could search the key term and bring up all notes and things you have saved to do with that topic.
Applications that link notes can also bring up relevant and suggested topics to further extend your learning and note-taking. Search all our note-taking apps on Tool Finder, one of the best productivity blogs out there for finding tools.
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