What DEVONthink is
AlternativeTo files DEVONthink under Note-taking. It is recorded as Paid, Proprietary, from Germany, EU. It ships on Mac, iPhone, iPad. The topics its entry raises are offline use, encryption, sync and search.
That is our reading of the record. For AlternativeTo's own wording, see its page for DEVONthink — the facts above were read on 2026-08-16.
| Price | Paid |
|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary |
| Category | Note-taking |
| Origin | Germany, EU |
| Platforms | Mac, iPhone, iPad |
What SumizAI is
A note-taking application built around a conversation with an AI model. You ask a question, the answer streams back, and the answers worth keeping become Markdown notes — filed into a vault that is a folder on your own disk.
A vault is a directory holding base.md, a generated table of contents up to six levels deep, and a notes/ folder with one .md file per note. Before a note is written it is checked against the ones already there, so the fourth note about the same idea gets merged instead of added. Links between notes are ordinary Markdown links to files that exist.
The model is never ours: you bring your own API key to one of seven providers — Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, a local Ollama or your own server — and pay that provider directly. A question sends the table of contents plus at most five relevant notes within a 24,000-character budget, and the app shows you which five it used.
Side by side
| Side by side | SumizAI | DEVONthink |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1/month, one plan, 7-day trial without a card | Paid |
| Licence | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Platforms | macOS, Windows, iOS, Android | Mac, iPhone, iPad |
| Category | Note-taking — AI chat into Markdown | Note-taking |
| Where notes live | Standard .md files in a folder you choose | Its description mentions local or offline files |
| AI model | Seven providers, always on your own API key | Its description mentions AI |
| Origin | Poland, EU | Germany, EU |
Where they differ
- Both mention AI. The difference is whose key it runs on: SumizAI never resells inference — you connect one of seven providers (Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, Groq, OpenRouter, a local Ollama or your own server) with your own API key and pay that provider directly. Check what DEVONthink does with the model bill before comparing prices.
- DEVONthink is paid software. Compare the two numbers directly: SumizAI is one dollar a month, one plan, and your AI provider bills you separately for the model you chose.
- AlternativeTo's description of DEVONthink does not mention Markdown, so check what format your notes end up in before you fill it up. SumizAI writes standard
.mdfiles to a folder you picked, and an unpaid account can still export all of them. - DEVONthink advertises encryption. SumizAI answers the same worry a different way: on the desktop the notes never leave your disk, and the material a question sends to the model is capped at the table of contents plus at most five notes — and the app shows you which five it used.
- Both search. SumizAI's search reads the whole note — title, summary, body and the original question and answer — rather than titles alone.
- Both are run from the EU: SumizAI's operator is registered in Poland and the servers are in Germany.
Which one to pick
Reasons to pick DEVONthink
- end-to-end encryption is a requirement
Reasons to pick SumizAI
- the notes you want already exist inside conversations with an AI model
- you want the filing — title, chapter, duplicate check — to happen without you
- you want the result as plain
.mdfiles in a folder you picked - you would rather pay your AI provider directly than have a note app resell the model
Facts about DEVONthink: AlternativeTo, read 2026-08-16. SumizAI is not affiliated with DEVONthink, and the name is used only to identify the product being compared.
Taken from the AlternativeTo lists: Obsidian.