Used Evernote for a while, not even paid, but it doesn't offer anything (for me personally) that a flat folder with text or markdown files wouldn't cover. Then looking at the downside, I don't own the data and if Evernote decides they've had enough, all my stuff could be lost.

Tried doing plain files again (via Notable because people said so, but that also doesn't really offer anything an editor with markdown support (cmd + click to open other file) doesn't offer itself), but by then I didn't really need to keep notes anymore (I passed beyond the "research" phase of my current project).

A knowledgebase is for storing thousands of notes and quickly retrieve them when needed. Searching dozens of notebooks for the relevant info is not scalable.

With plain text formats such as Markdown search is just one grep away. Using ripgrep it’s also quite fast.

I think parent was referring to this:

> Honestly thinking of going back to a notebook

Yes.

Look into vimwiki.

2nd that. I keep coming back to vimwiki after forays into other tools. It isn't perfect but its reliable and I can find my notes when I need them

I use a Google Docs. Been using it solid for over 2 years.

Markup, searchabilitiy, simple.