Comparison

Goodnotes vs Pocket Note

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

Head to head
About

Goodnotes

Capture ideas, enhance productivity, and unlock insights with advanced AI features. This app offers tools for professionals, students, and creatives, including infinite whiteboards, AI-powered transcription and summarization, and customizable digital notebooks.

Highlights
  • AI-powered transcription and summarization
  • Infinite whiteboard canvas
  • Digital notebooks with customizable templates
  • Study Sets for flashcards
  • Presentation mode with laser pointer
  • Real-time collaboration
Features
Read full description

Goodnotes has always been the place to capture your ideas — from quick notes to big plans. Now, it goes further. With powerful AI and new ways to capture information, Goodnotes helps you connect the dots, unlock insights, and turn ideas into action. *Existing Goodnotes 5 users can continue to use Goodnotes 5 indefinitely or upgrade to the new Goodnotes. Either way, your notes are safe!* For professionals: Increase productivity at work ■ Whiteboard + Goodnotes AI: Brainstorm, mind-map, and diagram freely on an infinite canvas that grows with your ideas. Enhanced diagramming tools and real-time collaboration make it easy for teams to workshop & ideate together, while Goodnotes AI helps you capture and organize key takeaways instantly. ■ Goodnotes AI Audio & Meetings: Stay fully present in every conversation while Goodnotes does the work for you. AI-powered transcription and live summarization automatically capture discussions and turns them into clear meeting minutes. After the meeting, merge transcripts with your own handwritten or typed notes to create polished, shareable documents in seconds. ■ Text Documents + AI: Create documents that think with you. Enjoy a superior typing experience with rich inline blocks, build on ideas with external insights, and collaborate seamlessly with teammates. With AI-powered summarization, automated note generation, and transcript support, turn rough notes and meetings into finished content faster than ever. ■ Present your notes, slides, and content directly from Goodnotes when you connect your device via AirPlay or HDMI to an external screen. ■ Use Laser Pointer to guide your audience's attention during your presentation. ■ Export your handwritten and typed notes to email, print, or share them anywhere as PDFs. ■ Send a link to your notebooks to work on the same notes. ■ Import documents by emailing them to your custom Goodnotes email. For students: Ace your exams with ease ■ Record audio notes that are magically synced to your iPhone or iPad exact moment you write: perfect for lectures, seminars, and presentations. ■ Take handwritten notes that stay fully searchable: instantly find any word across every class notebook, even mid-lecture. ■ Study and practice straight from your notes with study Sets: flashcards built on active recall and spaced repetition. ■ Use AI to summarize, shorten, change the tone of your words, and turn messy handwritten or typed student notes into polished, structured study material. For planners and journalers: Let your creativity flow ■ Plan your week, month, or year on your iPhone/ iPad with built-in and importable planner templates, fully customizable to match how you plan. ■ Keep a daily journal alongside your planner. Combine handwriting, typed reflections, photos, and stickers on the same page. ■ Use Goodnotes AI to summarize a week's worth of journal entries on your iPhone or iPad into key themes and takeaways. ■ Customize the size and color of your paper templates to create the planner or journal you want. ■ Add, create, or import stickers, stamps, washi tapes, images, and more on your iPad. Digital notebooks: unlimited notebooks for the price of a single physical one ■ Combine handwriting and typed text on one page, alongside images, stickers, diagrams, and doodles. ■ Create digital notebooks, planners, and journals with customizable paper templates, including Blank Paper, Ruled Paper, Cornell Paper, Checklists, Planners, and more. ■ Navigate long documents with ease. PDF tables of contents are automatically imported, or create custom outlines yourself. ■ Back up all your handwritten and typed notes to Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive, and use iCloud to sync across iPad, iPhone, and Mac — so your notes are always safe. ■ Edit your handwriting by resizing it, changing the text color, or moving it to another spot on the page. Privacy Policy: https://www.goodnotes.com/privacy-policy Terms and Conditions: https://www.goodnotes.com/terms-and-conditions

About

Pocket Note

Transform your device into a powerful business notepad. Quickly capture ideas with handwriting, typing, and rich media. Organize notes into groups and export them as images or PDFs for easy sharing and printing.

Highlights
  • Handwritten and typed input
  • Customizable pen sizes and colors
  • Paste photos and maps
  • Insert figures and lines
  • Export as image or PDF
  • Organize notes into groups
  • iCloud synchronization
Features
Read full description

Would you like to make your smartphone or tablet PC into a useful business tool?  Pocket Note is a notepad application specially designed for the business scene. With Pocket Note, you can quickly put your ideas together by a straightforward, simple operation. [Major functions] - We provided grid lines and horizontal ruled lines on the notepad to make it easier to organize what you write down.And when you don't need a grid or horizontal lines, you can choose "blank". - You can input either manually or from the keyboard (compatible with Apple Pencil).  For manual input, choose from 2 pens, "regular" or "thick", and an eraser.  For pen size and color, choose from 20 sizes and 25 colors. - You can paste up to 20 photos on each page. - You can paste maps.  With a map, you can do the following:   You can display your current position on the map using GPS.   By continuously pressing down at a given location on the map, you can place a pin at the location.   By inputting a name or address, you can place a pin at that location.   You can also specify the zoom factor as you wish. - By pasting figures and lines, you can display your notes graphically.  For figures, choose from rectangles, triangles or circles.  You can specify their size and shape freely.  Lines may be with or without arrows.  For figures and lines, choose from 25 different colors. - You can save your notes as an image or a PDF file. You can do the following:  Print them out with a printer.  Save them as images in iOS "Photos".  Attach them to emails as images or PDF files.  Share them as images with iCloud Photo Sharing.  Paste them as images in iOS standard "Notes".  Save them as PDF files in iOS standard "iBooks".  They can be uploaded as images to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Evernote, Flickr, Line, etc.  (If these applications are installed. Also, if the application is compatible with iOS App Extensions, they can be uploaded as images.) - Notes can be organized into groups.  Several groups can be set for each note.  Notes can be displayed by group, or by modified date. - It's compatible with iCloud, so you can share your notes on your iPhone or iPad. - Compatible with Siri Shortcuts. You can use this application for free for 30 days. If you want to use this app from the 31th day onward, please watch the advertisement movie or make In-App Purchase. [Contact us] https://www.studioks.net/en/contact-us/ [Studio K's - Business Applications Maker] https://www.studioks.net/en/

Screenshots

Goodnotes4 screens
Pocket Note4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Goodnotes at none against Pocket Note's shown. Goodnotes also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and rating (4.7 vs 4.3). Pocket Note's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.6). On price, review sentiment, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Goodnotes sells 16 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Pocket Note sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Goodnotes holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Goodnotes has 455K ratings behind it against 14, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 34% and 33% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Goodnotes ships an update weekly, Pocket Note every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and August 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
Goodnotes versus Pocket Note: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGoodnotesPocket Note
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (455K ratings) — better4.3 (14 ratings)
Positive reviews33.6% of reviews — better33.3% of reviews
Number of ratings455K — better14
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#86 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.613.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size794 MB25 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGoodnotes LimitedNAOAKI SEKIGUCHI

Customer experience

Goodnotes

All ratings454,853 ratings
Positive93.4%
Neutral1.9%
Negative4.7%
Written reviews6,458 reviews
Positive33.6%
Neutral11.3%
Negative55.0%

Pocket Note

All ratings14 ratings
Positive78.6%
Neutral0.0%
Negative21.4%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive33.3%
Neutral11.1%
Negative55.6%

Bugs and requests

Goodnotes

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Text box issues - unable to edit, resize, or move properly
  • Handwriting recognition problems, especially with cursive
  • Unreliable scrolling and page navigation
  • Inconsistent behavior when using the zoom feature

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add bullet point and formatting options for typed text
  • Implement a full-screen writing mode
  • Improve the straight line and shape tools
  • Integrate audio recording and synchronization
  • Allow more customization of the toolbar and interface

Pocket Note

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

16 purchases

Goodnotes

Subscriptions5
  • AI Pass (Monthly)7 Days trial$9.991 Month
  • Goodnotes 6 (1 Year)1 Year trial$9.991 Year
  • Essential (Yearly)7 Days trial$11.991 Year
Show 2 more
  • Essential (Yearly)1 Year trial2 variants$11.991 Year
  • Goodnotes Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$35.991 Year
One-time11
  • Bunny Oasis StickersFree
  • Medicine-Academia Sticker SheeFree
  • Goodnotes 6 Free TrialFree
Show 8 more
  • Marketplace Content$1.99
  • Marketplace Content$6.99
  • Marketplace Content$8.99
  • GoodNotes 5 Unlock$9.99
  • Marketplace Content$9.99
  • Marketplace Content$10.99
  • Goodnotes 6 One-Time Payment$28.99
  • Special Edition$35.99
1 purchases

Pocket Note

One-time1
  • Pocket Note License$3.99

Questions

Is Goodnotes free?
Goodnotes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Pocket Note free?
Pocket Note is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Goodnotes or Pocket Note?
Goodnotes is rated higher. Goodnotes averages 4.7 out of 5 from 455K ratings, while Pocket Note averages 4.3 from 14 ratings.
Do Goodnotes or Pocket Note have ads?
Pocket Note shows ads; Goodnotes does not.
Which is updated more often, Goodnotes or Pocket Note?
Goodnotes ships an update weekly, and Pocket Note every 2 months. Most recently, Goodnotes was updated on September 24, 2026 and Pocket Note on August 13, 2026.

Other comparisons