Mental Note Lite ๛ vs Noteflow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Mental Note Lite ๛
This app transforms your device into a versatile digital notepad. Seamlessly combine text, drawings, photos, and voice recordings on a single page to capture ideas in rich detail. Organize, protect, and share your notes in various formats.
- Combine text, photos, audio, and drawings
- Finger drawing with multiple colors
- Organize notes with tags
- Password protect private notes
- Export notes to PDF, text, and more
- Share notes via email and cloud services
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"...a true notepad experience that may help you make a clean break from the pencil-and-paper era." -New York Times. Users describe Mental Note as "the only notepad app... that's actually better than, and as simple as, a pen and paper." It's "the future of note taking", and "a big sketchpad... [to] free associate and put stuff down in any format". Turn your iPhone into a digital notepad. Combine photographs, voice recordings, drawings and text - all on the same page, in any order you choose. An idea... a flash - a moment of genius. When a thought hits, and you have to remember it, why limit how you record it? The more context and sensory details you can capture, the clearer the idea can be put down. Use photographs, audio, sketching and text together on the same page... a digital page that can be shared with anyone. Mental Note allows you to capture ideas as they happen: use photographs, dictate, add text, sketch on anything. Ideas clarified. Creativity captured. FEATURES - Draw with your finger using multiple colours and widths on top of photographs, text, or anywhere else on the page. Zoom in to sketch fine details. - Take a photo or choose one from your album and add it to the page. - Add audio to the page by recording with your microphone. Continue to edit your note while recording. - Organize your notes using tags. - Password protect your private notes and flag your important ones. - Attach Calendar events to your notes. - Undo, redo anything in the note by shaking the device. - Delete note sections using the toolbar button or by swiping any note section. - Move a note section by swiping and then dragging it to its new location. - Length of a note is limited only by device memory. - Export in a variety of formats including PDF, text, Mental Note format, and more. Send using email, iCloud, Dropbox, and more. * Send a note in Mental Note format so the note may be imported into another person's Mental Note app. * Using email, export a complete note directly from Mental Note as either a PDF document or a picture (each audio recording is attached to the email as a separate file). You can also email just the text from your note. - Export your notes and backups to your iCloud and/or Dropbox account. - Share a note with your friends using most installed apps. - Map the location a note was created at (if location services are enabled). - Change the size and font of the text in your notes. - Change the color and background of your notes. - Numerous other configuration options. The Mental Note Lite digital notepad comes with space for four notes. Upgrade to the full version of Mental Note to create an unlimited number of notes. Read more: www.zymbiotic.com X @zymbiotic facebook.com/zymbiotic
Noteflow
This app offers a digital notebook experience designed to replace pen and paper. It allows for note-taking, PDF annotation, sketching, and freeform idea capture with vector ink that scales without quality loss. Seamlessly integrate real-world content and organize your thoughts digitally.
- Digital notebook replacement for pen and paper
- Annotate PDFs and sketch freely
- Convert real-world images to vector ink
- Fluid editing without traditional layers
- Drag-and-drop integration with iOS
- Cloud storage synchronization
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Noteflow is designed to replace pen and paper. It is a modern digital notebook that lets you get the most from your iPad and iPhone. Use it for taking notes, annotating PDFs, sketching and doodling, plus a whole lot more: Copy and paste from the real world: Use Inkport gen 2 to snap a picture of a whiteboard or writing and convert it into Noteflow's native vector ink. No special paper needed. Then resize, re-color, or edit as if you wrote it in Noteflow. Create layered drawings without layers: Use the highlighter tool to color and shade behind existing ink. Use Color-Select to separate and edit individual colors. It's a much more fluid and natural editing experience than with layers. Use the straight-line tool with a grid for fast and intuitive wireframes and drafting. Drag-and-drop, cloud-storage, and more: Noteflow natively integrates with iOS's file system and drag-and-drop capabilities. Drop photos and text into Noteflow, and drag your drawings into other apps. Store your files locally or sync with the cloud service of your choice. Make Noteflow a seamless part of your workflow, the way you like. SPACE FOR YOUR IDEAS TO ROAM Our vision for Noteflow is simple: to be digital pen and paper. The magic of pen and paper is in their versatility. They are useful for so many things, but particularly for the freeform capture of ideas. Noteflow expands upon this quality. You can naturally do all the things you normally do with pen and paper: take notes in meetings or class, and jot down flashes of inspirations on the go. And you can take that to a whole new level: One of Noteflow’s best uses is for "thinking on digital paper": quickly capture key ideas and concepts, then move and organize them on the screen. Noteflow's vector ink engine lets you scale and edit your work without any loss of quality. Your words and drawings remain tack sharp when zoomed in, giving you a huge effective working canvas even on a single page. There are analogues in the physical world, such as sketchnotes or everyday working on a white board, but being able to fluidly edit and move your ideas around the page is something you can only do digitally. When you represent the ideas in your head with your own personal scribbles on the screen, it effectively becomes an extension of your mind - giving you more room to think. We've designed every part of Noteflow to let you intuitively capture and work on your ideas the way you like. Whether it's dropping in existing information, quickly sketching concepts, or assembling polished presentations for others. EVALUATE NOTEFLOW RISK FREE Rather than just read about Noteflow, go ahead and try it out: We've decided to make the Basic Edition completely FREE. The Basic Edition is a full featured note-taking and sketching app. It comes with the Fountain Pen with black ink, photos, and a standard set of 5 popular fonts for text. Books max out at 20 pages each, but you can create as many as you like. NOTEFLOW+ Upgrade instantly at any time to get: + Inkport + Import and annotate PDFs + A customizable, full color palette, + The Marker, Write-Behind Highlighter and Straight Line tools. + Rotate, Cut, Copy, Paste Ink, and Page Management, + Notebooks with unlimited pages, + Page backgrounds and sizes, + An additional 50+ fonts, + And more! Learn more in the in-app Quickstart Guide. DIGITAL TOOLS FOR A DIGITAL AGE I hope you'll find Noteflow a useful part of your workflow, and that you'll discover new ways to do things with it that weren't easy before. We're very proud of the work we've put into Noteflow, but we're also just seen the beginning of what's possible with powerful new digital platforms like the iPad. Our goal is to push these platforms to their limits to craft useful tools. Tools that can help us think a little more clearly, communicate a bit more effectively, and connect with other in new and enriching ways. Thanks for joining us on this journey! -- The App Makers @ Qrayon.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Noteflow at none against Mental Note Lite ๛'s 8. Noteflow also leads on ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (182 vs 2). Mental Note Lite ๛'s advantage is rating (4.5 vs 4.2) and review sentiment (58% vs 47%). On price, device support and iOS requirement 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. Mental Note Lite ๛ sells 8 one-off in-app purchases. Noteflow asks for nothing beyond the download.
Mental Note Lite ๛ holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Noteflow has 182 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 58% of Mental Note Lite ๛'s written reviews are positive against 47% of Noteflow's.
Mental Note Lite ๛ ships an update every 5 months, Noteflow every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 5, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Mental Note Lite ๛ | Noteflow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2 ratings) — better | 4.2 (182 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 58.0% of reviews — better | 46.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 182 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 6 weeks — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 14 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Zymbiotic Technologies | Qrayon, LLC |
Customer experience
Mental Note Lite ๛
Noteflow
In-app purchases
Mental Note Lite ๛
- Paper Customization feature$2.99
- 100 sheet refill pack$3.99
- Note Copying feature (includes free Note Linking feature)$3.99
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- Export to another app feature$3.99
- Password Protection feature$3.99
- Straight Line Drawing feature$3.99
- Dark Mode Override feature$3.99
- 250 sheet refill pack$4.99
Noteflow
No in-app purchases









