DeNotes vs Standard Notes
Both apps are built around not being able to read your notes, but they get there by different routes. Standard Notes encrypts your notes so its servers hold ciphertext. DeNotes does not hold your notes at all, and puts them in your Google Drive instead.
What Standard Notes does well
Standard Notes has one of the strongest privacy stories in the category. Notes are end-to-end encrypted by default, the clients are open source and auditable, it runs on every major platform, and you can self-host the server if you want to remove even that trust. For anyone whose threat model is serious, it is a well-earned reputation.
Where DeNotes is different
End-to-end encryption is a real guarantee and it has a real consequence: an encrypted note is only readable through software that can decrypt it. DeNotes takes the other path. Your notes are ordinary Markdown files in your own Google Drive, so any editor can open them and nothing depends on DeNotes continuing to exist, but they are protected by your Google account rather than by encryption DeNotes controls. Both are honest answers to the same worry. DeNotes optimizes for portability; Standard Notes optimizes for secrecy. For notes that need to be genuinely hidden, DeNotes has the Private Vault, which locks items behind a passcode verified on the server.
Should you use DeNotes or Standard Notes?
Choose Standard Notes
Choose Standard Notes if end-to-end encryption is a requirement, you want open-source clients you can audit, or you intend to self-host.
Choose DeNotes
Choose DeNotes if what you want is ownership rather than secrecy: readable Markdown files in your own storage, with a passcode-locked vault for the few notes that need it.