Blog·14 August 2026

The best Mac note app in 2026

I make one of these, so treat this as a comparison with a declared interest. It is still the comparison I wish existed when I was choosing.

Every article with this title picks a winner, and every one of them is wrong, because the apps are not competing on one axis. What actually decides it is five questions, and once you have answered them the shortlist is usually one item long.

I make Skein, one of the five apps below. You should read this the way you would read any comparison written by a participant. What I have tried to do instead of pretending otherwise is to be specific about where each of the other four wins, and to put a date and a source on every number.

The five questions

Do you need it on a phone? If yes, that alone removes several good apps from the list, including mine.
Do your notes need to be files? Meaning: if the company folded tomorrow, would you still have them in a form you can read. This is the question people answer last and regret first.
Does anyone else read them? Notes for thinking and documents for sending are different products.
Do you want to configure it? Some people enjoy this and are well served. Some people want to write a note.
Bullets or paragraphs? Outliners and document editors suit genuinely different heads.

Where the apps actually stand

App	Your notes live in	Price	Download
Skein	A folder you chose, as .md files	Free	11.1 MB
Obsidian	Plain Markdown files in a folder you choose	Free. Sync from $4/month, Publish from $8/month, commercial licence $50/year and explicitly optional	218 MB
Logseq	SQLite in the 2.0 database version. Markdown files only in Logseq OG, which is now maintenance-only	Free and AGPL. Sync has no published price list	161 MB
Bear	A SQLite database inside a private container	Free tier. Bear Pro $2.99/month or $29.99/year, which is what buys sync	38 MB
Craft	Craft's own cloud on AWS by default. A local option exists and is documented as second class	Free up to 1,500 blocks. Plus about $8/month billed annually, $9.99 monthly	312 MB

The second column is the one worth reading twice. Four of these five are routinely called Markdown apps, and only two of them keep your notes as Markdown files.

The answers

Choose Obsidian if you want the ecosystem

Nothing else comes close on extensibility: Obsidian says more than four thousand plugins and themes have been created since 2020, and in May 2026 they replaced the old directory with one that scans every version for security and code quality. Your notes are plain files, it runs everywhere including your phone, and the sync it sells has published third-party security audits, which almost nobody else can say.

The costs are that it is Electron, at 218 MB, and that the app arrives as a workshop expecting you to build your own desk. Some people find that the best part. Full comparison.

Choose Bear if the phone matters and the file does not

Mac, iPhone and iPad, syncing over iCloud with no servers of Bear’s own involved, at $29.99 a year. The best nested tags on the platform, and the nicest typography in the category. Your notes live in a SQLite database Bear tells you to open read-only, so “Markdown app” here means the syntax rather than the storage. Full comparison.

Choose Craft if other people read your notes

Real collaboration, sharing, publishing, whiteboards inside documents, and every platform including Windows and Android. Documents come out looking designed. Your work lives on Craft’s servers by default; the local option exists and Craft’s own documentation is honest that it is second class. Full comparison.

Choose Logseq if you think in bullets

Open source under the AGPL, block references, daily journals, PDF annotation. Read the April 2026 announcement first: Logseq split into a SQLite version that carries the name and a Markdown version, Logseq OG, that is explicitly in maintenance. Full comparison.

Choose Skein if you want a Mac app that gives you the files

Native rather than Electron, 11.1 MB rather than hundreds, free with nothing to buy, and no plugin system: wikilinks, backlinks, a local graph, an infinite canvas in the open JSON Canvas format, live queries, templates, quick capture and ranked full-text search are all simply present. Nothing in the app talks to a network at all.

The costs are real and worth stating in the same breath: Mac only, no sync service, no plugins, no phone app, and one person maintaining it. Everything it does is here.

A note with its YAML properties shown as a table, and the local graph panel listing its five linked notes — Skein's local graph: the five notes standing next to this one, rather than a picture of the whole vault.

The two changes that make 2026 different

The file-based field narrowed.Two years ago “keeps your notes as Markdown files” described most of this list. After April 2026 it describes Obsidian, Logseq OG in maintenance, and Skein. If that property is why you are reading a comparison at all, the shortlist is shorter than the search results suggest.

Plugin ecosystems got governance.Obsidian’s new directory scans every version rather than only the first submission, and says older non-compliant plugins will eventually be phased out. That is a genuine improvement in safety and also a reminder of what a plugin is: somebody else’s code, in the app that holds your notes.

If you want the short answer anyway

Phone required: Bear, or Obsidian with Sync. Other people read them: Craft. You live in the plugins: Obsidian. You think in bullets: Logseq. Mac, files, and no configuring: Skein.

And if you are still not sure, choose whichever one keeps your notes as files, because it is the only choice on this list you can reverse for free. Skein is one of those, and so is Obsidian.

Figures checked 14 August 2026, from each app’s own site, documentation, changelog or App Store listing rather than from reviews. Prices vary by region and change. I make Skein. Corrections are welcome and I would rather publish one than leave a flattering number up.