Notebooks vs Metanote
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Notebooks
This app helps you write, organize, and manage documents, tasks, and files. It offers flexible writing modes, robust organization tools, and task management features, all while ensuring your data remains accessible and under your control.
- Formatted text, plain text, and Markdown writing
- Create documents with styles, tables, and attachments
- Organize with nested hierarchies and 'books'
- Task management with due dates and checklists
- Wiki-style linking and backlinks
- Full-text search
- Cross-device synchronization
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Own your notes — forever. Notebooks is a writing and organization app with no subscription, no lock-in, and no worries. Your documents are stored as standard files you can always access, export, or move freely. Pay once. Use for life. Use Notebooks as a personal wiki, Zettelkasten, document archive, task manager, or long-term writing space. Capture quick notes, turn them into actionable tasks, combine text fragments into chapters, organize research, or keep business documents separate from personal journals — without ever switching apps. Designed to help you stay focused and work at your own pace, Notebooks grows with your needs and is always ready to support you. WRITE AND CREATE Create beautifully formatted documents with styles, attachments, tables, checklists, and optional tables of contents. Choose from ready-made styles or design your own. Write in different ways: Formatted text (WYSIWYG) Plain text, with smart handling of lists, automatic character pairing, and a focused writing view Markdown, supporting MultiMarkdown and Discount, with syntax highlighting, dedicated keyboard keys, wiki-style links, and interactive checklists Sketch ideas or annotate images and PDFs using Apple Pencil. STORE AND ORGANIZE Notebooks stores all documents as regular files in standard formats. You always remain in control — no lock-in, no export worries, fully compatible across devices and over time. Organize your work in books and nested hierarchies without limits. Import PDFs, emails, web pages, MS Office and iWork documents, images, audio, video, and more. Use full-text search to find even the most deeply nested document. PLAN AND ACT Turn books into project lists and documents into tasks. Assign due dates and alerts, create nested projects, and track progress naturally — right where your work lives. Use simple checklists in formatted documents or Markdown for lightweight task tracking. STAY FOCUSED Link documents together to build knowledge over time. Use wiki-style links, backlinks, contexts, and smart books to keep everything connected and within reach. When you rename or move documents, links stay intact. A PLACE YOU CAN RELY ON Sync your documents between iPhone, iPad, Mac, and PC. Work on documents stored in other apps, compile selections into PDFs or eBooks, scan documents and extract text using OCR, and trust that your data stays accessible — now and in the future. With time, Notebooks often becomes the one place users rely on to keep everything that matters close at hand. WHAT USERS SAY “Notebooks is a wonderful app — sophisticated in an unassuming way. I feel more productive without spending time managing the app itself.” “You are GTD in every way that makes it efficient — and makes me efficient.”
Metanote
A privacy-focused offline editor that supports Org mode for writing, task management, and knowledge wikis. It offers real-time editing of rich content and seamless synchronization across devices.
- Privacy-first offline editor
- Full Org mode support
- Real-time rich content editing
- Seamless synchronization
- Integrated task management
- Full-text search
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Metanote is a privacy-first offline editor that supports org mode. In Metanote, everything is text, everything is editable. Supports real-time editing and rendering of images, hyperlinks, tables, Latex mathematical formulas, source code blocks, attachments and other rich content with the text markup language 'org mode'. Literary creation, academic papers, literary programming, task management, knowledge wiki and other usage scenarios can be easily handled. *** Freedom & Private 100% work offline, no account required, no network required, no private document formats, no data collection, your data and privacy are completely under your control. *** Writing every where Whether on the go or in your bedroom, you can create, view and edit your documents anytime, anywhere, and with built-in synchronization, everything will be there when you return to your desk. *** A silky-smooth editing experience Pure native development, lightweight and smooth, rejecting any lag, even for large files! *** Thinking better Through the structured editing function, ideas come to life on screen. It is not only a beautiful outline, but also efficient thinking. *** Never miss a thing There is no more free task management system than this. Notes are to-dos, and to-dos are notes. Everything is plain-text and everything can be edited. Capture inspiration on the go with 'capture' and keep everything in sight with 'agenda view's. *** Org mode Metanote fully supports org mode 9.3.6 syntax, including features like Capture and Agenda View, allowing for a perfect and even enhanced org mode experience on smartphones. - An incredibly smooth editing experience. - Sync using WebDAV(Apache WebDAV Server, ownCloud, Yandex.disk, etc.), Dropbox, OneDrive, Git, iCloud. - Support for adding Obsidian and Logseq working directories, integrating and managing them in a unified manner - Supports full-text search. - Support images, tables and LaTeX. - Support hyperlinks and attachments. 1. Supports internal links and external links. 2. Click on the attachment link to preview and edit, the following types are supported: 1. iWork and Microsoft Office documents 2. Images 3. Live Photos 4. Text files 5. PDFs 6. Audio and video files - Supports multi-window editing. - Customizable startup page - Supports mini buffer. - Compatible with org mode version 9.3.6 - Todo notifications support - View agenda views by year, month, and day - Customizable workflows - Support for custom capture, custom agenda view, refile, log note, and other features. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Metanote at Free against Notebooks's $17.99. Metanote also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks) and iOS requirement (14.0 vs 16.6). Notebooks's advantage is ratings volume (1.1K vs 11) and rating (4.7 vs 4.5). On ads, in-app purchases and device support 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
Metanote is free to download; Notebooks costs $17.99 up front. Notebooks sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Metanote sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Notebooks holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Notebooks has 1.1K ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 83% of Notebooks's written reviews are positive against 73% of Metanote's.
Notebooks ships an update every 5 weeks, Metanote every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Notebooks | Metanote |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $17.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (1.1K ratings) — better | 4.5 (11 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 82.6% of reviews — better | 72.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1.1K — better | 11 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Freemium — better |
| Best chart rank | #100 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 47 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Alfons Schmid | 雪双 陈 |
Customer experience
Notebooks
Metanote
Bugs and requests
Notebooks
Reported bugs
2 issues- Data loss after iOS upgrades
- Compatibility issues with newer iOS versions
Requested features
4 requests- Improved Markdown support
- More font and color customization options
- Better Apple Watch integration
- Export to Word format
Metanote
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Notebooks
- Small Tip$0.99
- Custom Storage Locations$2.99
- Medium Tip$2.99
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- Generous Tip$4.99
Metanote
- Metanote Premium$1.991 Month
- Metanote Premium$12.991 Year
- One-time purchase$19.99








