Comparison

Recall vs Collected Notes

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

Head to head
About

Recall

This app helps you store and quickly find thousands of information snippets, including recipes, lists, and web links. It supports plain text, PDFs, and images, with comprehensive iCloud backups and drag-and-drop functionality on iPad.

Highlights
  • Store thousands of information snippets
  • Plain text format with PDF and image support
  • Comprehensive iCloud backups
  • Drag and drop support on iPad
  • Hierarchical tagging for organization
  • Advanced search with AND, OR, NOT operators
  • Siri Shortcut support
Features
Read full description

Recall-It Notes enables you to store thousands of snippets of information and quickly find what you need. For example, you can store recipes, gift lists, notes made while watching how-to videos or reading articles, keep annotated lists of web links, track major purchases, maintain checklists for activities like upgrading to a new phone, save frequently used keyboard shortcuts for your favorite apps, and much more. Recall-It is based on plain text, the most portable medium for your information. You can export your notes exactly as you entered or imported them so there is no lock-in as there can be with proprietary formats. Despite being plain text, your notes can include and display linked PDFs and images, e.g. photos or screenshots. Recall-It includes comprehensive back-up: by default, your entire database is backed up daily to your iCloud account, and you can manually archive everything, or any subset of your notes, any time. You can completely rebuild your database from any of the full back-ups. On iPad, drag and drop support lets you do things like create new notes by dragging text files from iCloud drive, drag images or selections from web pages, Apple Notes, email, iBooks, etc. and drop them to create new notes or append to existing ones. You can drag terms from the note you are looking at to the search field to find other possibly related notes. You can drag within the app to augment or copy notes, or drag a group of notes to iCloud drive to export them as text files. MAJOR FEATURES - Syncs via iCloud to all of your devices - Notes can be tagged to enable browsing or enhance search - You can apply multiple hierarchical tags to any note - Existing tags can be renamed or deleted for all associated notes - You can search based on AND, OR, NOT, and BEGINS-WITH - Searching for “word” automatically finds “words”, “worded”, “wording”, “wordy”, etc. (English only, and optional) - Search results are ordered showing best matches first - Search results can be filtered to include/not include notes with attachments - Search terms are highlighted within notes which auto-scroll to first occurrence - Repeat previous searches with a few taps - Launch the app and search via Siri command (Siri Shortcut support in iOS 12.) - One tap access to “favorite” or recently viewed notes - Easy formatting: bold headings, subheadings are automatically styled, or for greater flexibility, use Markdown heading syntax. - Handy in-note search function for continuing search within long notes - Auto-completion for easy entry of search terms/tags - Action Sheet support in Safari and other apps lets you save selections as new notes or append to any “favorite” note - Support for Slide Over, Split View, and 3D Touch on appropriate devices. - Automation via x-callback-url support; control Recall-It with the Workflow app - Easily insert images, checkboxes, bullets, current date and time into your notes. - Powerful batch editing for deleting, exporting, backing up, adding or removing tags from groups of notes - Comprehensive back-up and restore, including auto-backup (see above) - Extensive drag and drop support (see above) You may optionally choose to support development by purchasing a yearly, auto-renewing subscription ($4.99/year USD). Payment will be charged to your iTunes account, and renewals will be charged at the same price within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription if you have not turned off auto-renewal. You may turn off auto-renewal by going to your settings in the iTunes store, or directly from the app Settings pane where you purchased the subscription. For privacy policy and service terms see: http://www.microspell.com/recall-it/PrivacyPolicy.html

About

Collected Notes

A note-taking platform that allows users to create private notes, share them publicly, and build a blog with a custom domain. It focuses on a simple, native experience with live Markdown previews and no ads or tracking.

Highlights
  • Markdown with live preview
  • Create private notes
  • Share notes publicly
  • Build a blog with custom domain
  • Native iPhone experience
  • No ads or tracking
Read full description

Upload your thoughts. The simplest, and most powerful note-taking blogging platform ever made. Create private notes, share them publicly and create your blog with a custom domain. ■ Markdown with live preview Live Markdown previews allow you to see the final result in real-time as you type. ■ Simplicity Every app out there eventually tries to do more than they should. We believe in doing less, but better. ■ Native experience The iPhone app allows for a fast native-first experience. Just open the app and go right into writing mode. ■ No nonsense No ads. No feature creep. No tracking. No annoying emails. No data sold. No comments. No vanity metrics. No proprietary formats. You'll never see popups, clutter, subscription up-sells, or anything that interferes with the reading experience. Collected Notes is a reading-first experience. Your attention matters. Terms of use: https://collectednotes.com/blog/terms

Screenshots

Recall4 screens
Collected Notes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Collected Notes at every 2 weeks against Recall's every 2 months. Collected Notes also leads on review sentiment (87% vs 75%) and ratings volume (43 vs 8). Recall's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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. Recall sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per year and Collected Notes sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Collected Notes holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Collected Notes has 43 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 75% of Recall's written reviews are positive against 87% of Collected Notes's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Recall ships an update every 2 months, Collected Notes every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Recall versus Collected Notes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRecallCollected Notes
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (8 ratings)4.7 (43 ratings) — better
Positive reviews75.0% of reviews86.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings843 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS13.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size60 MB11 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperRobert N LucasAlfajor Co.

Customer experience

Recall

All ratings8 ratings
Positive87.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

Collected Notes

All ratings43 ratings
Positive90.7%
Neutral2.3%
Negative7.0%
Written reviews15 reviews
Positive86.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative13.3%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Recall

Subscriptions1
  • Subscription$4.991 Year
2 purchases

Collected Notes

Subscriptions2
  • Collected Notes Basic7 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Collected Notes Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month

Questions

Is Recall free?
Recall is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Collected Notes free?
Collected Notes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Recall or Collected Notes?
Collected Notes is rated higher. Recall averages 4.5 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Collected Notes averages 4.7 from 43 ratings.
Do Recall or Collected Notes have ads?
Neither Recall nor Collected Notes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Recall or Collected Notes?
Recall ships an update every 2 months, and Collected Notes every 2 weeks. Most recently, Recall was updated on September 28, 2026 and Collected Notes on October 2, 2026.

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