Comparison

Fast Notes vs Rune Secure Notes

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Fast Notes

This app offers a modern approach to note-taking and list-making using intuitive gesture controls. It aims to replace traditional pen and paper methods with a digital solution available on Apple devices.

Highlights
  • Gesture-based controls
  • Note-taking
  • To-do lists
  • Digital replacement for pen and paper
  • Available on iPhone and iPad
Features
Read full description

Fast Notes is the fastest way to write notes and to-do lists. Create a note in seconds and manage everything with simple, natural gestures: pull down to add a new note, swipe right to mark it as done, swipe left to delete it, and pinch two notes apart to insert one in between. WHAT'S NEW • Home Screen widget: see your notes at a glance and check them off without even opening the app • Search: find any note in an instant • Reminders: get a notification for a note at the time you choose • Quick action: start a new note right from the app icon AND MORE • 7 color themes to choose from • Icon badge showing how many things are left to do • Sounds and haptic feedback • Works offline: your notes stay on your device • Great on both iPhone and iPad Put down pen and paper — try Fast Notes now, it's free!

About

Rune Secure Notes

Features
Read full description

Rune is a calm, fast notes app for people who don't want to trust an app with their data. Your notes never leave your device, they are encrypted at rest, and the app makes no network connections at all. There is no account, no cloud, and no sign-up. Privacy by construction, not by promise: • No telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, no advertising, no tracking, none, not "anonymised", not "aggregated". • No networking code. Put your device in airplane mode and everything still works. If anything ever tries to reach the network, that is a bug. • No account and no server. There is no "we" that could hold your data. Real encryption: • Your passphrase derives a key with Argon2id; notes are sealed with XChaCha20-Poly1305 authenticated encryption. Only ciphertext is ever written to disk. • The passphrase is never stored and is not recoverable. If you forget it, your notes are gone, no reset, no backdoor. That is the price of real privacy. • A wrong passphrase simply cannot decrypt your notes. • Optional Face ID / Touch ID unlock: opt in to unlock with biometrics. Even then the passphrase is never stored — only the in-memory key is cached behind the biometric prompt. What you can do: • Create, edit, search, and organise plain-text notes with a clean, calm layout. • Auto-lock on inactivity and lock-on-background; the app starts locked. • Export an encrypted backup (safe to keep anywhere); plaintext export is gated behind an explicit warning. • Capture voice notes and transcribe them to text entirely on your device with on-device speech recognition — no audio and no transcript ever leaves your phone. Free and open source under the GNU GPLv3. The security-critical code is a small, dependency-light core so it can be read and audited. Releases ship with cryptographic provenance and are built reproducibly, so you can verify the binary was built from this source.

Screenshots

Fast Notes4 screens
Rune Secure Notes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Rune Secure Notes at none against Fast Notes's shown. Rune Secure Notes also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 6 months) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fast Notes ships an update every 6 months, Rune Secure Notes every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Fast Notes versus Rune Secure Notes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFast NotesRune Secure Notes
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (16 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings16 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsEvery 2 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supported—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size6 MB58 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperEmanuele FlorisRory Standley

In-app purchases

None

Fast Notes

No in-app purchases

None

Rune Secure Notes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fast Notes free?
Fast Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Rune Secure Notes free?
Rune Secure Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Fast Notes or Rune Secure Notes have ads?
Fast Notes shows ads; Rune Secure Notes does not.
Which is updated more often, Fast Notes or Rune Secure Notes?
Fast Notes ships an update every 6 months, and Rune Secure Notes every 2 days. Most recently, Fast Notes was updated on October 4, 2026 and Rune Secure Notes on October 9, 2026.

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