How Octarine compares
Octarine is a markdown note-taking app. So are Obsidian, Notion, Bear, Typora, and a dozen others. Here's where Octarine sits among them.
What Octarine is
A lightweight (under 30MB) cross-platform (Mac, Windows and Linux) desktop app for working with markdown files in a folder. It opens fast, searches instantly, and doesn't require an account. The core product is free, with an optional one-time paid license to unlock advanced features and workflows.
There's no plugin system, no proprietary sync, no collaboration features. It's a tool for personal notes — research, journals, documentation, whatever you keep in plain text with images/videos.
What Octarine isn't
It's not a team workspace like Notion. It's not a knowledge graph like Roam. It's not extensible like Obsidian. If you need databases, real-time collaboration, or an ecosystem of community plugins, Octarine isn't trying to be that and would not be a good fit.
The tradeoffs I've made
Speed over features. Octarine is fast because it doesn't try to please everyone.
Simplicity over flexibility. There's no plugin API because I want the app to work well without requiring assembly. The downside is you can't customize it much beyond themes.
One-time purchase over subscription. You pay $60 and you're done. I don't see your notes, I don't run sync servers, I don't have recurring costs to cover. The tradeoff is that some features — like backing up notes or syncing amongst your devices — you bring your own (iCloud / Dropbox / Git).
Specific comparisons
Both Octarine and Craft are polished note-taking apps, but they take very different approaches to organization and data ownership.
Why go with Octarine
You want your notes to be truly yours, easily exportable, and live in an open markdown format with flexible folder-based organization and lightweight app. You value a feature-rich environment: tabbed navigation for working across several notes at once in split panes, powerful datatables to review and edit your frontmatter and metadata, and a dynamic graph view to visualize connections. You don't want any friction in taking your data elsewhere or customizing your workspace deeply.
Why stick with Craft
You're drawn to an Apple-centric, beautifully polished experience designed for seamless use across your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. You prefer Craft's card-based canvas and smooth document creation, with an emphasis on creative layouts over plain markdown files. You're fine with a subscription in exchange for high-touch design, simplicity, and Apple ecosystem integration.
Ready to get started?
Been using Octarine as my daily driver for the past few days and I'm impressed. Seriously considering jumping from Noteplan.