Price
Both are free:
Notational Velocity: 10/10
ResphNotes: 10/10
Installation
Both install from Zip Files. Notational Velocity's Zip File is 1.6 MB, ResophNotes is 7.2 MB. Apparently Notational Velocity is 4.1MB on disk; ResophNotes is just 0.708 MB on disk, but if you look at the entire folder it's 16.4 MB. Seems like a clear advantage for Notational velocity, even though it is of course tricky to compare file sizes on different OS's.
Notational Velocity: 6/10
ResphNotes: 4/10
Icon
I think this is trivial, perhaps even frivolous, but I like ResophNotes' Icon much better. (I have no idea why "Icon" should be as important as "Features," i.e. have the same weight, but here it goes.)
Notational Velocity: 6/10
ResphNotes: 8/10
Interface
The general layout is similar, though Resophnotes does not show the dates viewer as Notational Velocity does. Some view this as a shortcoming. I don't, but I will deduct two points. On the other hand, ResphNotes has tags, which Notational Velocity has not. This seems to me worth at least three points.
Notational Velocity: 7/10
ResphNotes: 8/10
Ease of Use
Both are minimal. You need to press Ctrl-N to write a new note and cannot just start typing in the search box. I like this better, but I will keep the points the same.
Notational Velocity: 7/10
ResphNotes: 7/10
Features
Notational Velocity allows formatting (bold, italics, underline). ResophNotes doesn't (because it is a plain text application). I would not call this a shortcoming as I use wiki-formatting to format (//,**,__) and almost everything ultimately ends up in ConnectedText, but others would most certainly look at it as a short-coming (-1). On the other hand, ResophNotes accepts Markdown, which can be translated into HTML and viewed in ResphNotes itself (and copied and pasted into an application capable of rtf (formatting remains) (+1). ResphNotes also allows you to e-mail a note. ResophNotes does not encrypt—not important to me, but it may be important to others (-1).
Notational Velocity 8/10
ResphNotes: 7/10
Conclusion
Notational Velocity gets 7.3/10, ResophNotes also gets 7.3/10.
As I said at the beginning, I know I am comparing Apple and PC applications (and if you have not realized by now that my tongue is firmly in my cheek, you have missed something).
Still, I think this application on the apple platform is no better than the application on the PC platform. Both allow
- Modeless Operation: Searching for notes is not a separate action; rather, it is the primary interface.
- Incremental Search: Searching encompasses all notes’ content and occurs instantly with each key pressed
- Mouseless Interaction: The window was designed for keyboard input above all else, and thus has no buttons.
- Data Instead of Documents: There is no manual “saving” in Notational Velocity; all modifications take effect immediately.
- and, most importantly, both sync with SimpleNote.