Google Keep: fast notes with nothing in the way
Opens instantly, syncs everywhere, and does not try to become a workspace. The trade is that it stops being enough as soon as notes get long.
Keep does not compete with Notion or Obsidian, and that is its strength. It is a place to put a thought in three seconds.
What it is good at
Speed of capture. Open, type, done. No page hierarchy to decide on first.
Reminders tied to place and time. A note that surfaces when you reach the shop is something the writing-focused apps here do not offer.
Genuinely free. No subscription, no premium tier.
Where it runs out
Long notes get unpleasant. The card layout is built for short things.
No structure. Labels and colours are all you get. There is no folder tree, no linking between notes, no database.
Your notes live in your Google account — which is fine for most people and disqualifying for some.
208 MB is surprising for something this simple, and comes from being bundled with the rest of Google's mobile stack.