Alternative to Notion

A free Notion alternativeyou keep, offline

Carnet gives you the part of Notion most people use alone: a tree of nested pages made of blocks, the / menu, to-dos, toggles, tables and boards. It opens in your browser with no account and keeps working with Wi-Fi off, because your notes never leave your device.

CarnetEvery note, list and doc in one nested page tree.

Get Carnet free Choose its name and colour

Free, with no account. Pick its name and colour first if you like.

Free forever
No account
Works offline
Interface in French
Unlimited pages

Carnet

Compare

Notion and Carnetside by side

What you need	Notion	Carnet
Nested pages in a sidebar tree	Yes	Yesunlimited depth, drag to reorder
Blocks, / menu and Markdown shortcuts	Yes	Yes16 block types, # - [] > shortcuts
Tables and boards	Yesfull databases with relations, formulas, timelines	Partlytable and board views, 7 property types, one filter and sort per view
Templates, favourites, trash with restore	Yes	Yes
Works with no internet	Partlydesktop and mobile apps only; on Free you pick pages one by one	Yesin any browser, every page, once opened
Account needed	Required	None
Where your notes live	Notion's cloud	your browser, on your device
Real-time collaboration and comments	Yes	No
Sync between your devices	Yes	Nomove a JSON backup file instead
AI writing	YesNotion AI, on paid plans	No
Interface language	English and several other languages	French for now
Price for one person	$0 Free, $10–12 a month for Plus	$0, forever

What Carnet does not do

No sharing, comments or real-time editing with other people: Carnet is a notebook for one.
No automatic sync between your laptop and your phone. You move your workspace with one JSON backup file.
No relations, rollups, formulas, calendar or timeline views in databases.
No embeds (YouTube, Figma, files). Images and links only.
No AI. Everything Carnet does runs on your device.
The interface is in French today. Your notes can be in any language.

Price

What Notion costsand what Carnet costs

Notion is free for one person, with limits. Teams and heavy users pay per member.

Plan	Price	What you get
Free	$0	Unlimited blocks for one member, 5 MB uploads, 7-day page history, 10 guests
Plus	$10 a month, billed yearly	Unlimited uploads and page history of 30 days. About $12 billed monthly, according to third-party price trackers
Business	$20 a month, billed yearly	Notion AI included, SAML SSO, private teamspaces

Source: notion.com, checked on 16 October 2026. Prices are per member. The monthly-billing figure is not shown on Notion's page and comes from third-party trackers.

$0No plan, no trial, no card, nothing to cancel.

Carnet has no member count. Install it on as many devices as you like.

Why people switch

Why people leave Notion

Offline is limited
Notion's offline mode works in the desktop and mobile apps, not in a browser tab. On the Free plan you mark pages for offline one at a time; automatic download is a paid feature.
Source: notion.com
Prices went up with AI
When Notion AI was folded into the Business plan in 2025, its price rose from $15 to $20 per member a month.
Source: usagepricing.com
Everything sits in someone else's cloud
A Notion account is required and every page is stored on Notion's servers. People who keep private notes, journals or client details often want them on their own device instead.
Source: notion.com

Questions

Before you switch

Is there a free Notion alternative that works offline?

Yes. Carnet runs entirely in your browser and stores your pages on your device, so after the first visit it opens and saves with no internet at all, on a computer or a phone.

Do I need an account to use Carnet?

No. There is no sign-up, no email and no password. You open the app and start writing.

Can I import my Notion pages?

Partly. Export a page from Notion as Markdown, copy its text and paste it into Carnet: headings, lists, to-dos and quotes become blocks. There is no one-click import of a whole Notion workspace yet, and databases come across as text.

Where are my notes stored, and how do I back them up?

In your browser's storage, on your device. Nothing is uploaded. Use Settings, Export workspace to download one JSON file, and Import workspace to restore it on another device. Clearing your browser data deletes your notes, so keep a backup.