Zettlr vs OneNote
Last updated August 2026
Looking for a European alternative to OneNote? Here's how Zettlr compares, on EU hosting, GDPR and what it does.
Our pick for a European buyer: Zettlr. We weight data residency, GDPR and EU jurisdiction above everything else — that is the constraint this directory exists to solve.
What it is
Open-source Markdown editor for research and writing
not established
Headquarters
🇩🇪 DE
No
EU data residency
Yes, for all customersGermany
not established
DSGVO / GDPR
No
not established
Certifications
No
not established
Price from
No
not established
Free plan
No
not established
Open Source
Yes
not established
Ratings
No
No
Integrations
Zotero, JabRef, Juris-M, LanguageTool, Spellcheck +4
not established
We have not yet completed our own research on OneNote; rows above show only what we can evidence. Check the vendor for specifics.
Where each one wins
Zettlr
OneNote
Review sentiment not yet compiled.
Data residency & compliance
Zettlr
OneNote
EU data residency
Yes, for all customersGermany
not established
Transfer mechanism
Not required — data stays in the EU
not established
DPA
not established
not established
Sub-processors
not established
not established
Certifications
No
No
Features
Zettlr
- Note Management & Organization
- Markdown authoring with WYSIWYG or in-place preview, Note tagging and tag management, Wiki-style internal links and note IDs, Graph view for visualizing note connections
- Citation & Reference Management
- First-class citation support with 9,000+ styles, Integration with Zotero, JabRef, and Juris-M, BibTeX, JSON, and other citation formats, Preview citations
- Writing Assistance & Productivity
- LanguageTool, spellcheck, and Markdown lint integration, Auto-wrap for quotation marks and parentheses, Timestamps for marking key interview moments, Snippets system with variables and tabstops
- Export & Publishing
- Pandoc-supported export (30+ formats: PDF, Word, HTML, OPML, EDN, JSON), One-click journal submission templates, Presentation profiles for Beamer, reveal.js, PowerPoint, Custom templates for journals and conferences
- User Interface & Customization
- Multi-language support (40+ languages), Dark mode, Theme customization, Markdown preview (in-place or WYSIWYG)
OneNote
Feature breakdown not yet compiled.