Lockbook vs Prism Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Lockbook
A secure, open-source note-taking app prioritizing user privacy. It encrypts all your data locally, ensuring only you and authorized users can access your notes. Offers seamless syncing and sharing across devices, with a developer-friendly command-line interface.
- End-to-end encryption
- Open-source code
- Cross-device syncing
- Note sharing
- Developer CLI
- No personal data collection
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Lockbook is an end-to-end encrypted notes app for writing, sketching, storing files, syncing across devices, and collaborating in real time. Your notes are encrypted before they leave your device, so even we can't read them. Lockbook is 100% open source: https://github.com/lockbook/lockbook Fast & Native: We built Lockbook for everyday use because we use Lockbook every day. Our native apps feel at home on every platform, with fast sync, offline support, and a polished Markdown editor for serious notes. Secure: Keep your thoughts to yourself. Lockbook encrypts your notes with keys generated on your devices. Only you and the people you share with can access your notes, folders, sketches, and files. Private: Know your customer? We sure don't. We don't collect your email, phone number, or name. We don't need a password. Lockbook is for people with better things to worry about than privacy. Collaborative: Share folders, edit notes together, and see live updates from collaborators without giving up end-to-end encryption. Open: Write in Markdown, sketch in SVG, and keep your work in formats you can actually use. Honest: Be the customer, not the product. We sell a note-taking app, not your data. Developer Friendly: The Lockbook CLI fits right into your favorite chain of piped-together Unix commands. Search your notes with fzf, edit them with vim, and schedule backups with cron. When scripting doesn't cut it, use our Rust library for a robust programmatic interface. Website: https://lockbook.net Terms of Service: https://lockbook.net/tos License Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://lockbook.net/privacy-policy
Prism Notes
Capture thoughts and links quickly with a familiar texting interface. Organize ideas with AI-suggested tags and develop them across linked threads. Review notes to keep what matters and easily search by keyword or meaning.
- Texting-like note capture
- AI-suggested tags
- Threaded idea development
- Review mode for notes
- Sync across devices
- Natural language reminders
- Lock screen capture
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Prism is the private place for quick thoughts and links. It feels like texting, rather than writing in a document. Capture easily, organize with tags, develop ideas across threads, review to keep only what matters. Free to try! Features: - Private and on-device - Opt in to iCloud sync between iPhone and Mac - Voice transcription and voice memos - Lock screen widgets for text and voice capture - AI-suggested tags to make organizing easy or automatic AI tagging (requires apple intelligence) - Review mode to keep notes alive or let them go - Threads to evolve a thought and link them together - Search by keyword - Natural language reminders - just say "remind me tomorrow at 2pm" (requires apple intelligence)
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Prism Notes at free against Lockbook's freemium. Prism Notes also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs weekly) and iOS requirement (18.6 vs 26.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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
Both are free to download. Lockbook sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $2.99 per month and Prism Notes sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Lockbook against 4.9 for Prism Notes. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 14 and 32 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Lockbook ships an update weekly, Prism Notes every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Lockbook | Prism Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (14 ratings) — better | 4.9 (32 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 14 | 32 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 80 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lockbook LLC | Tommy Joseph |
Customer experience
Lockbook
Prism Notes
In-app purchases
Lockbook
- 30GB$2.991 Month
Prism Notes
- Lifetime Unlock$6.99
- Lifetime Unlock$12.99









