Comparison

Facylitate Note vs Synapse Social

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

Head to head
About

Facylitate Note

This tool simplifies classroom observations by recording layouts, time-stamping actions, and providing visual records. Generate reports in various views and easily upload or email them.

Highlights
  • Record multiple classroom layouts
  • Time-stamp actions
  • Visual record of observations
  • Multiple report views
  • Dynamic server uploading
  • Email reports
Features
Read full description

Capturing classroom observations is made easier. Facylitate Note records multiple classroom layouts, time-stamps each action taken and includes a visual record of the entire observation. The reports can be produced in several views and allow for dynamic uploading to our server or emailing to users. Terms of Use: https://www.facylitate.org/terms-of-use

About

Synapse Social

This app delivers a personalized feed of new research papers, helping researchers stay updated without constant searching. It learns your interests to notify you of relevant publications, offering summaries and methodologies to assess their value.

Highlights
  • Personalized research feeds
  • Track research questions, not just keywords
  • Follow journals, authors, and institutions
  • View paper summaries and methodologies
  • Track online attention for papers
  • Save and organize research
Features
Read full description

Synapse is a personalized feed of newly published research papers. It helps researchers stay up to date without hopping between journals, emails and websites. Instantly see what’s new, what’s relevant, and why it matters to your work. Synapse Learns your research interests and continuously monitors journals, authors, and institutions, notifying you when relevant papers are published. All your research interests, sources, and discoveries in one place. No keyword spam. No endless searching. Just relevant research, every day. Built for scientists, clinicians, and researchers who want signal over noise. USE SYNAPSE TO • Create personalized research feeds • Instead of keyword matching, track your research questions • Follow alerts for journals, authors and institutions and see their papers in one place • View summaries and methodologies so you know whether a paper is worth opening • Track papers that are getting online attention • Read full papers on the go • One place to save and organize what you care about WHY RESEARCHERS USE SYNAPSE • Stop missing important papers related to your work • Reduce time spent checking multiple platforms • See what’s gaining momentum in your field • Understand research faster. Synapse extracts methodology, key results, summaries and study rigor • Connect with researchers working on similar problems • Connect your institution and reference manager ACCESS 200M+ scholarly works • Journal articles, preprints, conference papers, books, datasets, and more indexed via OpenAlex 60M+ open access works • One of the largest openly accessible research corpora globally, aggregated across publishers and repositories 15M+ preprints • From arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, SSRN, and other major preprint servers 250M+ authors & contributors • Disambiguated researcher profiles linked across publications and institutions 40K+ academic journals & venues • Including high-impact journals, society publications, and conference proceedings 100K+ institutions worldwide • Universities, hospitals, research centers, and labs mapped globally

Screenshots

Synapse Social4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Synapse Social at none against Facylitate Note's 3. Synapse Social also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (14 vs 2). Facylitate Note's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, review sentiment 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

Both are free to download. Facylitate Note sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Synapse Social asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Facylitate Note against 5.0 for Synapse Social. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Synapse Social has 14 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Facylitate Note ships an update every 2 months, Synapse Social every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Facylitate Note versus Synapse Social: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFacylitate NoteSynapse Social
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (14 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings214 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesAd-supported — better
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS12.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size21 MB75 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperTechnological AdvancementsSynapse Social LLC

Customer experience

Facylitate Note

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Synapse Social

All ratings14 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Facylitate Note

Subscriptions3
  • Monthly Subscription$9.991 Month
  • Yearly Subscription$59.991 Year
  • 6 month free trial$60.006 Months
None

Synapse Social

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Facylitate Note free?
Facylitate Note is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Synapse Social free?
Synapse Social is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Facylitate Note or Synapse Social?
Facylitate Note and Synapse Social are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 14 ratings respectively.
Do Facylitate Note or Synapse Social have ads?
Neither Facylitate Note nor Synapse Social shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Facylitate Note or Synapse Social?
Facylitate Note ships an update every 2 months, and Synapse Social every 2 days. Most recently, Facylitate Note was updated on October 14, 2026 and Synapse Social on October 28, 2026.

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