Instead of Outline, try one of these 4.
Every alternative is lined up against Outline on what people actually switch for: price, open source, self-hosting, offline use and platforms. Outline sits in the first row, so you can see what you give up.
How to read this. “Yes” means fully supported by the maker. “Partial” means it works with caveats. Likes reflect community popularity; vendors can’t pay for them or for placement. How we compare.
Outline alternatives at a glance
Outline is a paid productivity app (self-host free). We compared 4 alternatives: 3 are open source, 2 are completely free, 1 can be self-hosted and 3 work fully offline. The most popular is Obsidian, with 3.9k likes.
Private, local-first knowledge base built on plain Markdown files.
Freemium · Works offlineOutliner for networked thought, with backlinks and daily journals.
Free · Open source · Works offlineLocal-first, end-to-end encrypted workspace with objects and sets.
Free · Open source · Works offlineOpen-source encrypted notes with private sync.
Freemium · Open source · Self‑hostable