Standard Notes
Tana
| Feature | Standard Notes | Tana |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free / from $7.5/mo | Free / from $12/mo |
| Free Plan | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.3 / 5 | 4.3 / 5 |
| Best For | privacy-focused-users, journalists, professionals, researchers | power-users, researchers, knowledge-workers, systems-thinkers |
| Founded | 2016 | 2020 |
| Encryption | ✓ | ✗ |
| Themes | ✓ | ✗ |
| Editors | ✓ | ✗ |
| Tags | ✓ | ✗ |
| File Attachments | ✓ | ✗ |
| Two Factor Auth | ✓ | ✗ |
| Supertags | ✗ | ✓ |
| Ai Commands | ✗ | ✓ |
| Live Queries | ✗ | ✓ |
| Views | ✗ | ✓ |
| Node Graph | ✗ | ✓ |
| Daily Notes | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Standard Notes Pros
- End-to-end encrypted
- 100-year company promise
- Cross-platform
- Open-source
✗ Standard Notes Cons
- Basic free version
- Fewer features than Notion
- Limited formatting
✓ Tana Pros
- Supertags create structured data effortlessly
- Powerful AI-powered search and commands
- Everything is queryable and linked
- Flexible views (table, board, calendar)
✗ Tana Cons
- Steep learning curve
- No mobile app yet
- Still in development (features changing)
The Verdict
Standard Notes is built for privacy focused users and journalists, with a focus on encryption and themes. Tana targets power users and researchers and leads with supertags and ai-commands.
Pricing is close: Standard Notes starts at $7.5/mo versus $12/mo for Tana — not a deciding factor on its own.
Both offer free plans, so you can test each with your real workflow before committing to a subscription.
Both tools are a solid fit for researchers — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.