Alternatives
Best Craft alternatives
Beautiful documents vs files you own
Craft makes polished documents meant to be shared: rich layouts and cards, real-time collaboration, comments, and share links, with apps on macOS, iOS, Windows, Android, and the web. People look beyond it when the subscription adds up, when documents living in Craft's cloud starts to feel like a lock-in, or when they realize most of their notes are for themselves, not an audience.
Full disclosure: we make Octarine, one of the alternatives below. It's listed first and marked as ours. Every entry's strengths and tradeoffs come from that app's own pages, linked in the sources at the bottom.
Octarine
We make this oneCraft's care for writing, but plain Markdown files you own — paid for once.
Best for: People whose notes are mostly for themselves and want out of the subscription.
Strengths
- Notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose, working offline without setup
- Backlinks, a graph, and Views — tables, Kanban boards, and graphs over your notes
- Publish notes to the web with reader comments
- The core app is free; Pro is $79, once
Tradeoffs
- No real-time co-editing — Craft is the better pick when documents are edited by several people
- No rich layouts or card-based design; formatting is Markdown's
- No Android or web app
Price: Free core; Pro $79 one-time
Octarine vs Octarine
Notion
A collaborative cloud workspace with databases that can run whole processes.
Best for: Teams and people who need co-editing, permissions, and relational databases.
Strengths
- Real-time co-editing with permissions on every page
- Relational databases with formulas and rollups
- Web app plus desktop and mobile apps
Tradeoffs
- Pages live on Notion's servers; offline access is opt-in per page, and databases download only their first 50 rows
- Per-member pricing — Plus is $10 / member / month
Price: Free; Plus $10 / member / month
Octarine vs Notion
Bear
A polished, Apple-only writing app for personal notes.
Best for: Apple-only writers who keep Craft for themselves rather than sharing.
Strengths
- Native Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch apps, with Apple Pencil sketching
- Password-locked notes and search inside scanned PDFs and photos with Pro
- A genuinely lovely editor for personal writing
Tradeoffs
- Notes live in Bear's database rather than as files, though Markdown export exists
- No Windows, Linux, or Android app; sync requires a Bear Pro subscription
Price: Free without sync; Bear Pro subscription
Octarine vs Bear
Obsidian
A vault of plain Markdown files you shape with thousands of plugins.
Best for: People who want files plus an ecosystem for personal knowledge.
Strengths
- Notes are plain Markdown files in a vault folder, free including commercial use
- Thousands of community plugins and themes
- iPhone, iPad, and Android apps in both stores
Tradeoffs
- Features arrive via plugins you assemble yourself
- First-party sync and Publish are subscriptions
- Sharing a polished public page means Obsidian Publish, a paid add-on
Price: Free; Sync and Publish subscriptions
Octarine vs Obsidian
UpNote
A simple, inexpensive notebook that runs on every platform.
Best for: People who want a calm notebook and a small bill.
Strengths
- Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps with built-in sync
- Inexpensive, with a lifetime option
- Rich-text editing with Markdown shortcuts
Tradeoffs
- Notes are stored in UpNote rather than as files, though Markdown export exists
- The free plan caps at 50 notes
- No collaboration — it's a personal notebook
Price: Free to 50 notes; $1.99 / month or $39.99 lifetime
Octarine vs UpNoteWhy people switch from Craft to Octarine
The usual reason is the files. A note in Octarine is a Markdown file in a folder you choose — readable by any editor, syncable by any service, and yours regardless of what happens to any app, including ours. Craft's optional local folder comes with a real cost: it turns off sharing, comments, and version history.
The second reason is the bill. Octarine's core is free and Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription that renews every month or year for features you mostly use alone.
What you give up: Craft's document design — rich layouts, cards, styling — and its real-time collaboration. If your documents are meant to be seen and edited by other people, Craft is genuinely the better tool for that, and this page would rather you keep it.
Choosing between two of these?
Sources · Checked Nov 9, 2026
Each app's strengths and tradeoffs are drawn from its own pricing pages, help docs, and release notes — the same sources as our one-on-one comparisons, which were last verified November 4, 2026. Facts were re-checked against those sources when this page was compiled.
- Craft platforms
- Craft plans and pricing
- Craft External Locations
- Notion pricing
- Working offline in Notion
- Notion workspace export
- Bear syncing and privacy
- Obsidian pricing
- Obsidian community plugins
- UpNote features and pricing
Product names and logos belong to their owners; no affiliation or endorsement is implied.
Something wrong or out of date, including if you work on Craft? Suggest a correction
Octarine.