# Noteful vs Protekto

The clearest difference is price: Noteful at Free against Protekto's $4.99. Protekto's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1). On update cadence, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.

Noteful is free to download; Protekto costs $4.99 up front. Noteful sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Protekto asks for nothing beyond the download.

Noteful ships an update fortnightly, Protekto every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 5, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Noteful | Protekto |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | **Free** | $4.99 |
| Rating | **[4.8 (24K ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/noteful-notes-and-pdf-markup/id1587904334/reviews)** | — |
| Number of ratings | **24K** | — |
| Positive reviews | 86.9% of reviews | — |
| In-app purchases | Yes | **No** |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | **Every 10 days** |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Size | 157 MB | 49 MB |
| Requires iOS | **16.4** | 17.0 |
| Devices | **iPhone, iPad** | iPhone |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | [Noteful Technologies Ltd](https://appshunter.io/developer/1587904336) | [Jethro Shy Gonzales](https://appshunter.io/developer/6792781861) |

## What reviewers say

### Noteful

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/noteful-notes-and-pdf-markup/id1587904334)

This app revolutionizes paperless note-taking on iPad, allowing for handwritten notes, document annotation, and knowledge organization. It offers a fluid writing experience, PDF markup, powerful tagging, and audio recording synced with notes.

**Highlights:** Handwritten notes with Apple Pencil, PDF and document annotation, Organize notes with tags, Layers for annotations, Audio recording synced with notes, Import PDFs and MS Office documents

**Features:** macOS Compatibility, Family Sharing, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (1)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Noteful Pro, Lifetime | $6.99 | one-time |

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Smooth writing experience
- 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
- 💡 Layers feature
- 👍 Affordable one-time purchase
- 🚀 Efficient and lightweight

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Occasional crashes or freezes
- 🔍 No handwriting recognition or search
- 🔍 Limited text editing options
- 🔍 Lack of advanced features like math conversion
- 🔍 Exporting PDFs loses some formatting

**Reported bugs**

- Syncing issues across devices
- Lasso tool not working properly with PDFs
- Eraser tool not functioning as expected

**Requested features**

- Handwriting recognition and search
- More text editing options (bullet lists, etc.)
- Improved PDF handling and annotations
- Custom templates and sticker support
- Expanded cloud storage options (Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.)


### Protekto

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/protekto/id6792781859)

**In-app purchases:** none


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Noteful free?

Noteful is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Is Protekto free?

Protekto costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.

### Do Noteful or Protekto have ads?

Neither Noteful nor Protekto shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Noteful or Protekto?

Noteful ships an update fortnightly, and Protekto every 10 days. Most recently, Noteful was updated on October 18, 2026 and Protekto on October 5, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*