I tried so many things. The highlights for me:
1. Bear - Started simple. Looked pretty, but it was buggy at the time. There was a point where the app was unusable (line wrapping stopped working, notes would fly off of the screen), they didn't fix it for months so moved away.
2. Notion - It was great at first, but missed the simplicity of taking notes, and things like offline support. Also wasn't using DB's etc. too much so moved away.
3. Obsidian - Tired of vendor lock-in, moved over to simple md files. I like it but there were so many features that I wasn't using.
Current:
A folder in iCloud drive with a bunch of md files in it. For desktop I simply edit them with VS Code. For mobile, I use an app called MWeb that edits files directly inside of iCloud drive (so gets synced to desktop). They're also backed up in Github (only pushes, no pulls to avoid conflict).
Apple Notes and Notion, keeping it simple now.
Proud (mostly ashamed lol) to say I have tried every tool in this thread 🤣
Have probably spent 100's of hours just trying tools, was a really effective method of procrastination for me hahah
I've tried a bunch of different options like evernote, onenote, trello, or simply the iOS notes app but eventually landed on Notion as my favorite.
It's more than just a notes app but you can use it for publishing, collaboration, building databases & tables, and organizing large amounts of notes in an easy way.