Snoq vs the alternatives
Nearly every notes app says it encrypts your notes. The question worth asking is who holds the key — and whether there is a server in the answer at all. These comparisons are written to be useful even where Snoq loses.
Encrypted for a server
Standard Notes, Joplin sync, Turtl and CryptPad encrypt your notes so they can be sent somewhere. That is real cryptography, and it buys you sync across devices. It also means an account, and a company whose implementation you are trusting.
Trade: convenience for a dependency.
Encrypted for a disk you own
Snoq encrypts because the disk might be read by someone who is not you. There is no account and no server, so there is nothing to breach and nobody to trust. Every parameter is published.
- Cipher
- AES-256-CBC
- KDF
- Argon2id · 64 MB · 3 iter
- Server
- None
Neither column is the right answer for everyone. That is the point of the pages below.
Looking at the category as a whole? Read the roundup of the best encrypted notes apps in 2026.
Write privately. Keep it that way.
Free, no account, no cloud, no telemetry. Your notes are encrypted with AES-256 on your own machine, using a key derived from your password that never touches disk.
Download for Windows- Encryption
- AES-256-CBC · Argon2id
- Network use
- None — works fully offline
- Requires
- Windows 10 or 11 · no admin
- Recovery
- None — your password is the only key
That last row is not a limitation we forgot to fix. Nothing anywhere else has ever held your key, so nothing anywhere else can hand it back. Choose a password you will not lose.