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
Octarine and Notion are wildly different in both the use cases and the target audience if you go beyond what "taking notes" is.
Why go with Octarine
Lightweight compared to Notion (30MB vs 500MB). You want your notes to be private by default and stored on device. You mainly take plain markdown notes and are fine with the limitations that come with it. Octarine also is really fast compared to Notion given there's no network calls to fetch notes/settings or anything. It also works offline by default without needing to set a page to be offline. And you don't like paying for a subscription.
Why stick with Notion
You are a heavy database user, and can't live without them. You want to access your notes on the web and mobile at all times. You don't really care if the notes are on your device or on a server and happy to pay a subscription to have them sync across devices. You value real-time collaboration and work in a team and would like to share your work across the company.
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.