Note Board vs Card Buddy
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Note Board
Capture quick thoughts and reminders by drawing sticky notes on a virtual cork board or by taking instant photos. Customize your notes with various colors and pen styles for a personalized experience.
- Virtual cork board
- Sticky note creation
- Instant photo memos
- Multiple note colors
- Various pen styles
- Eraser tool
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Note Board is a quick and fun way to handle your notes. Draw sticky notes on a virtual cork board or take an instant photo as a memo. There are multiple colors for the notes and different kind of pens and the eraser.
Card Buddy
This app provides a digital corkboard for organizing ideas with index cards. Effortlessly arrange cards, add images, and utilize different text styles to outline stories, plot novels, or manage research. Its intuitive interface makes idea management feel natural and flexible.
- Drag-and-drop index cards on a free-form canvas
- Two-sided cards with front summary and back details
- Add images to cards for storyboards
- Multiple text styles including Markdown
- Kanban layout for column organization
- Syncs across Mac and iPhone
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Card Buddy turns your screen into an infinite corkboard for index cards. Drag cards anywhere on the canvas and watch neighboring cards glide out of the way — outlining your story should feel as natural as moving notecards on a desk. Perfect for screenwriters, novelists, and anyone who thinks in cards. Lay out your beat sheet, rearrange plot points, and build your story one card at a time. Features: - Drag-and-drop index cards on a free-form canvas, with neighbors that move out of the way automatically - Two-sided cards — type a summary on the front, details on the back - Add images to any card for storyboards and moodboards - Three text styles: Plain, Auto-style (instant headers and subtitles), and Markdown - Kanban layout to organize cards into columns - Built for Mac and iPhone — your boards go where you do Whether you're breaking a screenplay, plotting a novel, or organizing research, Card Buddy keeps your ideas movable. Terms of use: https://www.ussherpress.com/cardbuddy/terms/ Privacy policy: https://www.ussherpress.com/cardbuddy/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Card Buddy at none against Note Board's shown. Card Buddy also leads on rating (4.3 vs 3.8) and monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). Note Board's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 84%). On price, update cadence 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
Both are free to download. Note Board sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Card Buddy sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Card Buddy holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Card Buddy has 44 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of Note Board's written reviews are positive against 84% of Card Buddy's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Note Board | Card Buddy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (6 ratings) | 4.3 (44 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 83.9% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 | 44 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Digital Footmark Oy | Allen Ussher |
Customer experience
Note Board
Card Buddy
Bugs and requests
Note Board
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Card Buddy
Reported bugs
3 issues- Trial mode does not allow saving
- Images not displaying adequately
- Double-tap zoom out feature interrupts text selection
Requested features
19 requests- Tagging individual cards
- Apple Pencil support
- More keyboard shortcuts
- Support for multiple canvases within a single document
- More customized options for text formatting, fonts, and colors
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- Auto update to cloud option
- Form of auto version number on save
- Dropping small video clips
- Templates
- Fit to window view
- Grab function for moving the board
- Linking notes
- Basic formatting (Bold, Italics, underline, highlight, color)
- Share outline with others for editing
- iPhone version
- Duplicating boards
- Duplicating cards
- Disabling double-tap zoom out feature or making it customizable
- Adding back previous document type options (Storyboard, Kanban, etc.)
In-app purchases
Note Board
- Remove ads$1.99
Card Buddy
- Non-expiring License$19.99








