# Comparisons — Cyanote Cyanote does seven jobs that most people pay several apps to do. For nearly every one of those jobs there is a dedicated app that does it better. These comparisons are written by the person who makes Cyanote, so they are arguments rather than reviews; the prices are dated and checkable, and each one says where the other app is the better buy. Cyanote is not the best notes app, the best task manager, the best calendar or the best clipboard manager on the Mac. It is one app that does all of those adequately-to-well for $7.99 once, on the user's own machine, with no account. Whether that is a good trade depends on whether someone is currently paying for one of those things or five of them. ## The short version Each entry: what it costs, and when to choose it over Cyanote. - Paste — $29.99/yr or $89.99 once. Choose it for clipboard sync to iPhone and iPad, or deep image search. - Notion — free for one person; teams from about $96/yr. Choose it for collaboration, databases, or writing on a phone. - NotePlan — $12/mo or $99/yr. Choose it for markdown files, plugins, a phone app and calendar-first planning. - Lunatask — free tier; $6/mo annually; $300 lifetime. Choose it for encrypted sync on every platform, or journaling and mood tracking. - Obsidian — free for personal use. Choose it to build a system from plugins and own plain text files. - Maccy — free, open source. Choose it when clipboard history is the only thing wanted. - Things 3 — $49.99 once (Mac). Choose it when tasks are the whole job and the best task app on the platform is the goal. Prices are USD, checked on 13 August 2026. They change; check them before deciding. ## Detailed comparisons - Paste alternative: — what Paste's clipboard manager does better, what $89.99 buys against $7.99, and when sync makes the whole argument moot. - Notion alternative: — Notion is free for one person, so this one is not about price. It is about the account, the loading spinner, and being handed a kit instead of a system. - NotePlan alternative: — the closest product to Cyanote, at $99 a year with no one-time option and no clipboard manager. - Lunatask alternative: — privacy by encrypted sync everywhere at $300 for a lifetime licence, against privacy by the data never leaving the Mac at $7.99. - All-in-one productivity apps for Mac: — a round-up of nine options, including Apple's own apps, Obsidian, Craft, Akiflow and Sunsama, with prices checked on 2 October 2026. ## How to read the comparison Feature-for-feature against any single app above, Cyanote looks worse, and correctly so. Paste has spent years on clipboards alone; Things has spent longer on tasks. A one-person app that does seven things loses each of those individual comparisons. The comparison that matters is against the set of apps someone is currently running: five subscriptions, none individually expensive, which is why they rarely get added up. The author's own set came to about $260 a year (). The question is whether one adequate app is worth more than five good ones stitched together by hand. For some people it is not. One point in the table is uncontested. The clipboard managers (Paste, Maccy) are clipboard managers and nothing else. The apps that bundle several tools — NotePlan, Notion, Lunatask, Agenda, Brite — have no clipboard manager. Cyanote is both. ## What Cyanote does not do These rule out many comparisons before they start: - Sync between machines. There is no server, which is why there is no monthly cost. - Collaboration. No shared documents, no shared boards, no teams. - Mobile. No iPhone or iPad app. - Plugins. What ships is what there is. If any of those is essential, the app at the top of the relevant entry above is the better buy. Full page: Pricing: Prices checked: 13 August 2026