Comparison

Notesnook vs FlowMail

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

Head to head
About

Notesnook

This open-source app offers secure, encrypted note-taking and organization across all your devices. It features a robust editor, to-do lists, and a private journal with advanced security to protect your personal information.

Highlights
  • Military-grade encryption
  • Cross-platform synchronization
  • To-do lists and task management
  • Private journal with media support
  • Rich text and Markdown editor
  • Notebook organization
  • App lock with fingerprint support
Features
Read full description

Your notes are yours. Notesnook encrypts every one of them on your device before it ever reaches the cloud — so no one can read them. Not advertisers, not us. UNLIMITED NOTES. EVERY DEVICE. FREE. Most note apps cap the free plan until it hurts. Others stop after a few dozen notes. Notesnook never limits how much you write or how many devices you sync. A REAL EDITOR Headings, tables, code blocks, maths, outlines, Markdown and full-quality images. Notes that hold up whether you are writing a shopping list or a thesis chapter. ORGANISED AT ANY SIZE Nested notebooks, tags, colours, pinned and favourite notes, and search that stays instant at 10,000 notes. Link notes to each other and build your own private wiki. PRIVACY YOU CAN CHECK YOURSELF • End-to-end encryption is always on — you cannot switch it off, so you cannot forget • Encrypted on your device, in transit and at rest, using XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2 • Even your notebook and tag names are encrypted • 100% open source under AGPLv3 — read every line, or run your own sync server • Recommended by Privacy Guides IMPORT YOUR OLD NOTES Bring your notes, notebooks and tags with you. Import from your previous notes app, plus plain Markdown and HTML files. EVERYWHERE YOU WRITE iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web. Sync is instant, and encrypted the whole way. ALSO INSIDE • Web clipper — save any article, ad-free and offline • Reminders across all your devices • Note version history, so nothing is ever really lost • Publish a note to a shareable link • Dark mode and custom themes FREE FOREVER Unlimited notes, unlimited devices, 50 notebooks, 50 tags and full end-to-end encryption. No ads. No trial countdown. PAID PLANS Add task lists, callouts, recurring reminders, more storage, and — on Pro — app lock, an encrypted vault and full-quality images. From $19.99 a year. Questions or feedback: support@streetwriters.co Privacy policy: https://notesnook.com/privacy Terms: https://notesnook.com/terms

About

FlowMail

Read full description

FlowMail is an email client that lets you look at the same mail three ways — as a list when that is all you need, as a Kanban board when you are working through it, and as a graph when you need to see how a conversation actually unfolded. It is the same app on iPhone, iPad and Mac, and it runs on your device. There is no FlowMail server. WORK YOUR INBOX LIKE A BOARD Move messages between columns — To Do, In Progress, Done — without leaving your mail. A message keeps its board position as mail syncs, so the board is a real working state rather than a view you rebuild each morning. Kanban is in the free version. SEE THE SHAPE OF A CONVERSATION The Graph view lays a thread out as a force-directed graph — who replied to whom, where it forked, who went quiet. Useful exactly when a long thread has stopped making sense as a stack of quoted replies. On iPad it takes the whole screen. CHECK WHO REALLY SENT IT Ask any message whether it looks like what it claims to be. FlowMail reads what it can see locally — the domains in the thread, whether the message it replies to is one you actually have — and says what it found in plain words. You can add a lookup server for domain and attachment reputation, and have an on-device model explain the pattern; both are off until you turn them on, and the lookup sends domains and file hashes, never the message. READ MAIL IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE Translate a message in place, keeping its formatting and its quoted history. It uses Apple's on-device translation, so the mail you are reading does not leave your device to be read by a service. WORKS WITH THE MAIL YOU ALREADY HAVE Microsoft — Outlook, Hotmail, Office 365 — and Google, through their own sign-in pages, so your password is never typed into FlowMail. iCloud, Yahoo, Fastmail and anything else that speaks IMAP and SMTP, with server settings looked up for you. As many accounts as you like, on either tier. MAIL THAT ARRIVES WHEN IT ARRIVES Live sync holds an open connection to your Inbox, Sent and Archive folders while the app is open, and background refresh keeps the mailbox current when it is not. Notifications are grouped rather than one per message, and tapping one opens that message. FIND IT, AND ACT ON IT Search runs over your whole mailbox rather than a recent window of it. Filter the list down to what you have replied to, or what you have not. Select several messages and archive, flag or delete them in one go. AUTOMATE THE PARTS YOU REPEAT Build workflows from steps: find messages, apply or remove a label, move a card on the board, draft a reply, summarise, classify, transform text, fetch a web page, or call a tool on your own MCP server. Run them from the app, from Siri, from Spotlight, or from a Shortcut — ten Shortcuts actions ship with it, from Compose Email to Find Emails. AI THAT RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE FlowMail's AI steps use a language model running locally, on Apple's MLX. You pick the model. Message content is not sent to us or to any AI provider. OPEN WHAT LANDS IN YOUR INBOX Read .eml, .msg, .vcf and .ics files directly. A contact or an event can be added to Contacts or Calendar with one tap — and until you tap, FlowMail never touches either. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your messages are stored on your device. red8.io never receives, stores or processes them, and there is no account to create with us. Sign-in tokens and app passwords live in the Keychain. There is no analytics, no advertising and no crash reporting in the app. FREE, AND PRO Free is a complete email client: unlimited accounts, the List and Kanban views, search, live sync, notifications and one workflow. Pro adds the Graph view, unlimited workflows and on-device AI triage, as a monthly or yearly subscription with a free trial, or a one-time lifetime unlock. A purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac. Requires iOS or iPadOS 18.6 or later. In English and Brazilian Portuguese. Terms and Conditions: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Notesnook4 screens
FlowMail3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Notesnook at 15.6 against FlowMail's 18.6. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Notesnook sells 17 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and FlowMail sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Notesnook ships an update every 8 days, FlowMail weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Notesnook versus FlowMail: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNotesnookFlowMail
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (672 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews78.8% of reviews—
Number of ratings672 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 8 daysWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.6 — better18.6
Further details — not scored
Size96 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStreetwriters LLCLuiz Carlos Maia Junior

Bugs and requests

Notesnook

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes on launch on older iOS devices
  • Sync issues leading to data loss
  • Unreliable login and verification process

Requested features

5 requests
  • Improved search functionality
  • Reminders and calendar integration
  • Handwriting and drawing support
  • Multilingual support
  • Improved table and spreadsheet features

FlowMail

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

17 purchases

Notesnook

Subscriptions17
  • Notesnook Pro$0.991 Month
  • Notesnook Essential Plan7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Notesnook Pro$2.491 Month
Show 14 more
  • Notesnook Pro Plan7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Notesnook Pro3 variants$4.491 Month
  • Notesnook Pro1 Month trial$4.491 Month
  • Notesnook Pro Plan7 Days trial$6.991 Month
  • Notesnook Believer Plan7 Days trial$8.991 Month
  • Notesnook Pro$9.991 Year
  • Notesnook Essential Plan14 Days trial$19.991 Year
  • Notesnook Pro$24.991 Year
  • Notesnook Pro Plan14 Days trial$29.901 Year
  • Notesnook Pro Yearly$49.991 Year
  • Notesnook Pro2 variants$49.991 Year
  • Notesnook Pro1 Year trial$49.991 Year
  • Notesnook Pro Plan14 Days trial$69.991 Year
  • Notesnook Believer Plan14 Days trial$89.991 Year
3 purchases

FlowMail

Subscriptions2
  • FlowMail Pro Monthly14 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • FlowMail Pro Yearly14 Days trial$49.991 Year
One-time1
  • FlowMail Pro Lifetime$99.99

Questions

Is Notesnook free?
Notesnook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is FlowMail free?
FlowMail is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Notesnook or FlowMail have ads?
Neither Notesnook nor FlowMail shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Notesnook or FlowMail?
Notesnook ships an update every 8 days, and FlowMail weekly. Most recently, Notesnook was updated on October 18, 2026 and FlowMail on October 8, 2026.

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