Best Note-taking & PKM tools

Notion is the most-adopted Note-taking & PKM tool among creators we track, used by 38 creators (89% of its mentions organic over the past 90 days). This ranking counts real, receipt-backed creator usage — no editorial opinion, no paid placement.

1. 1

   Notion

   Connected workspace combining notes, documents, wikis and databases. Pages are built from blocks and can embed tables, boards and calendars; teams and solo creators use it for planning, documentation and content pipelines. Includes the Notion AI add-on.

   38 active creators · 87 mentions · 89% organic (past 90 days) · Free plan; paid plans from ~$10/user/month

   “🖥️ Get My Notion Templates” — Better Creatingsource ↗

   try Notion↗receipts →
2. 2

   NotebookLM

   Research notebook that answers only from the documents you upload, and cites the passage behind every answer.

   21 active creators · 47 mentions · 87% organic (past 90 days)

   “The first one is NotebookLM. I use it when I want to study a creator” — Sabrina Ramonov 🍄source ↗

   try NotebookLM↗receipts →
3. 3

   Granola

   Meeting notepad that listens along, fills in around your own bullet points and summarises afterwards.

   20 active creators · 32 mentions · 30% organic (past 90 days)

   “📝 Granola → Your meeting brain. Captures conversations and turns them into structured notes without a bot joining your c” — Aishwarya Srinivasansource ↗

   try Granola↗receipts →
4. 4

   Excel

   Microsoft's spreadsheet, with formulas, pivot tables and charts.

   14 active creators · 44 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days)

   “Learn Excel, SQL, Power BI + AI tools, build real dashboards” — WsCube Techsource ↗

   try Excel↗receipts →
5. 5

   Google Sheets

   Browser spreadsheet with shared editing, formulas and links into the rest of Google Workspace.

   14 active creators · 23 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days)

   “I created a functional CRM and business toolkit with Google Sheets called Sheetify CRM that connects to Google Workspace” — Stewart Gauldsource ↗

   try Google Sheets↗receipts →
6. 6

   Obsidian

   Local-first Markdown note app built around bidirectional links and a graph view. Notes are plain files on disk, extended by thousands of community plugins. Optional paid services add end-to-end-encrypted sync and web publishing.

   12 active creators · 17 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days) · Free for personal use; Sync ~$5/month, Publish ~$10/site/month

   “I can build plugins for Obsidian far faster than I could keep building an app” — ICOR with Tom | AI Productivitysource ↗

   try Obsidian↗receipts →
7. 7

   Microsoft Word

   Microsoft's word processor, with styles, tracked changes and comments.

   12 active creators · 12 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days)

   “In this APA 7th edition tutorial I set up a complete student paper in Microsoft Word from scratch” — Andy Stapletonsource ↗

   try Microsoft Word↗receipts →
8. 8

   Google Docs

   Browser word processor where several people write in the same document at once, with comments and version history.

   11 active creators · 18 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days)

   “You will see how Spark seamlessly integrates into your existing Google Workspace, interacting natively with Gmail, Googl” — ProgrammingKnowledge2source ↗

   try Google Docs↗receipts →
9. 9

   Roam Research

   Outliner-based networked note tool that popularized daily notes and bidirectional block references. Every bullet is an addressable block that can be embedded and linked across pages, aimed at researchers and writers building long-term knowledge graphs.

   1 active creators · 1 mentions · 100% organic (past 90 days) · ~$15/month or ~$165/year; long-term 'Believer' plan available

   try Roam Research↗receipts →
10. 10

    Shortform

    Book summaries with commentary and cross-references to related titles.

    1 active creators · 1 mentions · 0% organic (past 90 days)

    try Shortform↗receipts →