I moved my notes out of Apple Notes and into Markdown inside text files last year due to the bugs I encountered. This means I can sync them with whatever product I like (currently OneDrive) and open them on any system (currently macOS) with any app that can parse Markdown (currently iA Writer). It also means whenever any new app comes along, I can play around.

Usually what I want is something that loads very quickly and has a minimal UI that allows me to focus on writing, but also allows me to search all files quickly. iA Writer ticks all those boxes, and also has support for simple #hashtags so I can organise the notes.

Where things become more difficult is if the app adds a lot of custom functionality that is either specific to that app or adds lots of custom metadata to the files. Then you start to lose some of the above benefits, particularly cross-platform.

I looked at Obsidian but found the UI to be heavy and slow, and lots of extra functionality I wasn't interested in. I've tried a lot of apps[1] but always come back to iA Writer.

[1] https://davidmytton.blog/the-best-note-taking-apps-for-mac-m...