How Cocoa Notes compares

Both keep your notes as plain Markdown files. The difference is what happens after you highlight something.

Notion is a database that can hold notes. Cocoa Notes is a notebook that studies with you. The choice is mostly about where your notes live and what happens when the internet does not.

Apple Notes is free, already installed, and syncs to your phone. Cocoa Notes is for the notes you have to learn, not the ones you have to remember to buy milk.

Those two are iPad apps for handwriting that also run on a Mac. Cocoa Notes is a Mac app for typing that happens to look like paper.

Anki is the best spaced repetition software there is, and it will never write your cards for you. That gap is the whole reason Cocoa Notes exists.