Comparison

Nano Notes vs BenchBuddy

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

Head to head
About

Nano Notes

Capture thoughts and ideas instantly with a simple note-taking tool. Access and review your notes conveniently on your Apple Watch.

Highlights
  • Quick note creation
  • Apple Watch access
  • Simple interface
  • Instant synchronization
Features
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Take quick notes, and read them on your Apple Watch!

About

BenchBuddy

Features
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BenchBuddy bundles the calculations you reach for every day at the molecular-biology and biochemistry bench — from reagent weighing to PCR, gels, and pipetting steps — fast, in one place. Tools included • Reagent mass — how much to weigh from concentration × volume × molecular weight, with optional solvent correction from the actual mass weighed. • Dilution — the volumes you need from stock concentration, target concentration, and final volume. Supports multi-component mixes. • Serial dilution — build a serial dilution series from a stock; see per-tube transfer and diluent volumes, with a warning when transfers get too small to pipette accurately. • PCR master mix — build a master mix from reaction volume, reaction count, and overage, including per-tube additions. • Tm (melting temperature) — compute Tm and a suggested annealing temperature from a primer sequence, via the basic rule or the nearest-neighbor (NN, SantaLucia) method, with Na⁺ and oligo concentration. • OD260 → nucleic-acid concentration — concentration from A260 and nucleic-acid type (dsDNA/ssDNA/ssRNA), with A260/A280 purity. • Mass ↔ moles — convert amount (pmol) ↔ mass (µg) and copy number from length (bp/nt) or molecular weight. • Ligation ratio — insert amount (ng) needed for a target molar ratio (1:1–5:1) from vector/insert lengths and vector mass. • Hemocytometer — from your cell counts, compute cell concentration, viability (trypan blue), and seeding volume. Pick the chamber type (Neubauer improved / Bürker-Türk / Fuchs-Rosenthal / Thoma / custom) to auto-set the chamber factor. • OD600 → cell density — estimate density from OD600 with an organism preset (E. coli / yeast / custom) and dilution; editable factor; reverse to the OD600 for a target density. • Doubling time — doubling time, population doublings, and specific growth rate from initial/final counts and elapsed time (hours or days). • Confluency → cell number — estimate cell number from confluency (%) and vessel area (T25–T175, 6–96-well). • Passage planner — toggle seeding-density / split-ratio; computes suspension volume, medium to add, and the number of new vessels. • Gel predictor — preview how bands migrate from your ladder, agarose percentage, and sample band sizes. • Plate layouts — design 6–384-well (6/12/24/48/96/384) plate maps: group samples/conditions, set per-well concentrations and serial-dilution gradients down columns, and export as an image, CSV, or Markdown. • Bench steps — create pipetting steps over well ranges (e.g. A1:A12) and track progress in row- or column-major order. • Recipe saving & sharing — save the calculations you use often and recall them with one tap; export/import recipes as .benchbuddy.json files to share with labmates. • Result sharing — copy or share any calculation result as text, ready to paste into Notion, Slack, or your ELN. All calculations run on your device. The app is free and supported by ads.

Screenshots

Nano Notes3 screens
BenchBuddy4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Nano Notes at none against BenchBuddy's shown. BenchBuddy's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 months). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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

Nano Notes ships an update every 3 months, BenchBuddy every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and September 18, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Nano Notes versus BenchBuddy: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNano NotesBenchBuddy
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (150 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews83.3% of reviews—
Number of ratings150 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.013.0
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB32 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVincent TourraineHKraft Labs

In-app purchases

None

Nano Notes

No in-app purchases

None

BenchBuddy

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Nano Notes free?
Nano Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is BenchBuddy free?
BenchBuddy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Nano Notes or BenchBuddy have ads?
BenchBuddy shows ads; Nano Notes does not.
Which is updated more often, Nano Notes or BenchBuddy?
Nano Notes ships an update every 3 months, and BenchBuddy every 3 days. Most recently, Nano Notes was updated on October 1, 2026 and BenchBuddy on September 18, 2026.

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