Comparison

Standard Notes vs Pact

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

Head to head
About

Standard Notes

Securely capture and sync your thoughts across all devices with end-to-end encryption. This app offers a simple, lasting place for all your notes, from personal thoughts to sensitive information, with robust privacy features.

Highlights
  • End-to-end encryption
  • Cross-device syncing
  • Offline access
  • Passcode and biometric lock
  • Tagging system
  • Open-source code
  • Optional productivity editors and themes
Features
Read full description

Standard Notes is a private and secure end-to-end encrypted notes app. It allows you to write and sync your notes across all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web browser. Private means your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. Even we can't read the contents of your notes. Simple means it does one job and does it well. Standard Notes is a safe and lasting place for your life's work. Our focus is making it easy to write notes wherever you are and syncing them with encryption to all your devices. Our users love us for: • Personal Notes • Tasks & Todos • Passwords & Keys • Code & Technical Procedures • Private Journal • Meeting Notes • Cross-platform Scratchpad • Books, Recipes, & Movies • Health & Fitness Log Standard Notes comes free with: • Seamless sync across all your devices, with easy to use applications on iPhone, iPad, Mac, web browsers, and other platforms. • Offline access, so you can access your downloaded notes even without a connection. • No limit on number of devices. • No limit on number of notes. • Passcode lock protection, along with Touch ID and Face ID protection. • A tagging system to organize your notes (like #work, #ideas, #passwords, #crypto). • The ability to pin, lock, protect, and move notes to trash, which allows you to recover deleted notes until the trash is emptied. Standard Notes is completely open-source, which means when we say your notes are encrypted with industry-leading XChaCha-20 encryption, and that only you can read your notes, you don't have to take our word for it. Our code is open to the world to audit. We made Standard Notes simple because longevity is important to us. We want to make sure we're here, protecting your notes, for the next hundred years. You shouldn't have to find a new notes app every year. To sustain our development, we offer optional paid subscriptions which give you access to powerful tools like: • Productivity editors (like Markdown, Code, Spreadsheets) • Beautiful themes (like Midnight, Focus, Solarized Dark) • Powerful cloud tools including daily backups of your encrypted data delivered to your email inbox every day, or backed up to your cloud provider (like Dropbox and Google Drive). We're always happy to talk, whether it be a question, thought, or issue. Please feel free to email us any time at help@standardnotes.com. When you take the time to send us a message, we'll be sure to do the same. EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Pact

Build positive habits and achieve goals with friends. Create group pacts for daily or weekly commitments, where everyone's participation is crucial to maintaining a streak. Hold each other accountable and avoid letting your team down.

Highlights
  • Create daily or weekly pacts
  • Invite friends to join commitments
  • Maintain team streaks
  • Mutual accountability
  • Habit building
Read full description

Commit to something with your friends and stick to it. Build positive habits together. Create a daily or weekly pact, and invite your friends to commit with you. Everyone needs to complete the pact each day/week, or the streak is broken for the whole team. Don't let yourself down, don't let your friends down.

Screenshots

Standard Notes4 screens
Pact3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pact at none against Standard Notes's 1. Pact also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7). Standard Notes's advantage is ratings volume (3.7K vs 3) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, update cadence and ads 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. Standard Notes sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $119.99 per year. Pact asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Pact holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Standard Notes has 3.7K ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Standard Notes ships an update every 2 weeks, Pact fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and August 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Standard Notes versus Pact: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStandard NotesPact
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (3.7K ratings)5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews63.5% of reviews—
Number of ratings3.7K — better3
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS13.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size92 MB18 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStandard Notes Ltd.Sam MacGinty

Customer experience

Standard Notes

All ratings3,714 ratings
Positive92.5%
Neutral2.3%
Negative5.3%
Written reviews581 reviews
Positive63.5%
Neutral10.7%
Negative25.8%

Pact

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Standard Notes

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Notes disappearing or getting deleted unexpectedly
  • Sync issues between devices
  • Keyboard and UI bugs on mobile
  • Compatibility problems with older iOS versions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for images and attachments
  • Implement a more robust search function
  • Introduce a dark mode option
  • Allow for better note organization (folders, nested tags)
  • Add undo/redo functionality

Pact

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Standard Notes

Subscriptions1
  • Professional Plan7 Days trial$119.991 Year
None

Pact

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Standard Notes free?
Standard Notes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Pact free?
Pact is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Standard Notes or Pact?
Pact is rated higher. Standard Notes averages 4.7 out of 5 from 3.7K ratings, while Pact averages 5.0 from 3 ratings.
Do Standard Notes or Pact have ads?
Neither Standard Notes nor Pact shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Standard Notes or Pact?
Standard Notes ships an update every 2 weeks, and Pact fortnightly. Most recently, Standard Notes was updated on September 28, 2026 and Pact on August 6, 2026.

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