Comparison

Plain Note vs Notehot

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

Head to head
About

Plain Note

This app allows you to create and organize notes with customizable tags and icons. It offers lock screen and home screen widgets for quick access and supports character/line counting. Personalize your experience with themes, app icons, and fonts.

Highlights
  • Organize notes with tags
  • Customizable tag icons and colors
  • Character and line counting
  • Lock screen and home screen widgets
  • Customizable themes, app icons, and fonts
  • Archive and organize notes
Features
Read full description

"Plain Note" is a simple notes app. You can organize your notes by adding tags, and it supports lock screen and home screen widgets. It can be used on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Features • You can categorize your notes with tags. • Customize tag icons and colors. • You can count the number of characters and lines. • Archive and organize your notes. • Widgets can be added to the lock screen and home screen. • Customize themes, App icons, and fonts. (Some features are available for a fee.) Premium (in-app purchase) • Sync data with iPhone, iPad, and Mac via iCloud. This can also be used as a backup. • All themes and App icons are available. • All tag icons are available. • All font customizations are available. *Prices may vary by country or region. Please check in the app. *Some features may not be available in all languages or regions. Terms of Use: https://monelyze.app/en/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://monelyze.app/en/privacy

About

Notehot

This app offers a versatile note-taking experience, combining text, handwriting, audio, and photos. It features speech-to-text conversion, OCR for image text extraction, and iCloud synchronization across devices. Organize notes with hierarchical folders and set timed reminders for important tasks.

Highlights
  • Multi-form recording (text, hand-drawn, audio, photo)
  • Speech to text conversion
  • OCR text extraction from images
  • Hierarchical folder management
  • Timed reminders
  • iCloud synchronization
  • Export to PDF, PNG, JPEG
Features
Read full description

Notehot is a simple and practical paperless note-taking application, which integrates text, hand-painting, audio, and photography. .   Product main function: Multi-form recording - supports text, hand-drawn, audio, and photo recording methods to meet your needs for scene creation Custom style - custom adjustment of detailed parameters such as text, pictures, hand-painted, etc. to make your notes colorful Free typography - support text wrapping, free movement, page style as you want Conference recording - recording of long-term conferences, with voice key mark, listen wherever you want Speech Recognition - Real-time conversion of speech to text, organize meeting minutes with less effort Hierarchical management - supports multi-layer folder classification and organization to meet daily induction requirements Timed reminders - set reminders for important notes, just for you ocr text extraction - picture to text, only between the fingers Export and share - support to export notes to pdf, png, jpeg and other formats, share your ideas with others Recover Notes - Supports recovery of note content deleted within 30 days Private Notes - Private note space, add a lock to your important documents iCloud synchronization - multi-device iCloud synchronization, allowing you to access notes anytime, anywhere If you like Notehot or have any other comments, please take a moment to write your review, or send an email to our email playeratech@gmail.com, this will help us to continuously improve the product and provide you with a better experience!  About subscription: Prices may vary in different regions. Fees will be charged to the credit card associated with your iTunes account, and the paid account will automatically renew when it expires. To cancel a renewal, you can do so 24 hours before the end of the current billing period. Once a paid account is activated, it cannot be cancelled. Renewals may be managed in Account Settings after purchase. About Terms: Privacy Policy: https://notehot.com/privacypolicy.html Terms of Service: https://notehot.com/termsofservice.html

Screenshots

Plain Note4 screens
Notehot4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Plain Note at Free against Notehot's $0.99. Plain Note also leads on ratings volume (1.1K vs 175). Notehot's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 26.0). On rating, review sentiment, 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

Plain Note is free to download; Notehot costs $0.99 up front. Plain Note sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Notehot sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Plain Note holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Plain Note has 1.1K ratings behind it against 175, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 62% and 63% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Plain Note ships an update every 9 days, Notehot every 11 days. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Plain Note versus Notehot: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPlain NoteNotehot
PriceFree — better$0.99
Rating4.6 (1.1K ratings) — better4.5 (175 ratings)
Positive reviews62.3% of reviews62.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.1K — better175
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterEvery 11 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.014.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size31 MB134 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMonelyze Inc.Play Era

Customer experience

Plain Note

All ratings1,079 ratings
Positive90.5%
Neutral3.6%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews106 reviews
Positive62.3%
Neutral13.2%
Negative24.5%

Notehot

All ratings175 ratings
Positive86.3%
Neutral5.7%
Negative8.0%
Written reviews51 reviews
Positive62.7%
Neutral13.7%
Negative23.5%

User reviews

Plain Note

From 1.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Simple and clean design
  • 💡 One-time payment model
  • 🚀 Beautifully designed notes app
  • 🚀 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Customizable tags and icons

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Notes sometimes don't save properly
  • 🐛 Slow and unreliable synchronization
  • ❌ No text formatting options (bold, italics, etc.)
  • ❌ No ability to insert photos or videos
  • ❌ No option to export notes

Notehot

From 175 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Very convenient for note-taking
  • 👍 Smooth and clean interface
  • 👍 User-friendly and convenient
  • 👍 Good for recording things
  • 👍 AI text generation is great

Room to improve

  • 😞 Misleading pricing, asks for subscription after download
  • 😞 In-app purchases required for voice-to-text
  • 😞 Limited language choices
  • 😞 Requires money immediately after installation
  • 😞 App is not free

Bugs and requests

Plain Note

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Notes sometimes get deleted after updates
  • Widget not working as expected, showing wrong note

Requested features

7 requests
  • Ability to swipe widget to display another note
  • Subfolders for better organization
  • Export function to backup notes
  • Option to change app colors
  • Support for multiple notes in one widget
Show 2 more
  • Text formatting options (bold, italics, headings)
  • Ability to insert photos and videos

Notehot

Reported bugs

19 issues
  • App freezes and crashes
  • Lost entire notes after app freezes
  • Files are stretched or narrowed after import
  • Imported files take up the entire screen
  • Search function rarely finds existing text
Show 14 more
  • Cannot split screen
  • Note background is not pure black
  • Font size cannot be adjusted
  • Imported files only show filenames and cannot be edited
  • App downloads itself without authorization
  • Photos imported from gallery become blurry in the app
  • Extracted text from images is inaccurate
  • Text within the app cannot be copied to other locations
  • All typed text disappeared overnight
  • App is slow and laggy with large files
  • Writing is laggy
  • Sometimes a few pen strokes disappear after a long time
  • Occasional inexplicable jumps from handwriting to text input
  • Work disappeared after moving it to a folder

Requested features

20 requests
  • Add Dark Mode
  • Add smart shapes for diagraming
  • Add a paper guide (college or wide)
  • Add a 'pen' tool similar to pencil and marker
  • Ability to add images
Show 15 more
  • Add dual-window function for organizing notes
  • Improve search functionality
  • Allow two-finger adjustment of paper size
  • Add pure black background option
  • Adjustable font size
  • Improve import functionality to display content directly
  • Add ability to zoom and move imported files
  • Add ability to delete pages
  • Add ability to draw straight lines
  • Improve user-friendliness and ease of use
  • Add more writing features
  • Allow copying text to other applications
  • Improve file import clarity
  • Add more language options
  • Offer a one-time purchase option instead of subscriptions

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Plain Note

Subscriptions2
  • Premium - Monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Premium - Yearly7 Days trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Premium - Lifetime$29.99
6 purchases

Notehot

Subscriptions5
  • VIP Subscription$1.997 Days
  • VIP Subscription2 variants$2.991 Month
  • VIP Subscription2 variants$5.993 Months
Show 2 more
  • VIP Subscription$9.991 Year
  • VIP Subscription3 Days trial2 variants$17.991 Year
One-time1
  • VIP Subscription$14.99

Questions

Is Plain Note free?
Plain Note is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Notehot free?
Notehot costs $0.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Plain Note or Notehot?
Plain Note is rated higher. Plain Note averages 4.6 out of 5 from 1.1K ratings, while Notehot averages 4.5 from 175 ratings.
Do Plain Note or Notehot have ads?
Neither Plain Note nor Notehot shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Plain Note or Notehot?
Plain Note ships an update every 9 days, and Notehot every 11 days. Most recently, Plain Note was updated on October 25, 2026 and Notehot on October 25, 2026.

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