Notability vs Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Notability
Capture, organize, and enhance your ideas with handwritten notes, document annotation, and audio recording. This app streamlines learning and work by making your notes searchable, shareable, and interactive.
- Handwritten notes and sketching
- PDF and document annotation
- Audio recording synced to notes
- Handwriting recognition
- AI-powered summaries and takeaways
- Customizable organization with folders
- Cross-device sync
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From your first lecture to your next big meeting, Notability helps you think, learn, and work better. Take handwritten notes, annotate documents, record audio, and stay organized in one place so your ideas are always clear, searchable, and ready when you need them. NEW: NOTABILITY CLASSIC IS BACK Prefer to pay one time for Notability? Our Classic plan is a one-time purchase with no subscription required. FREE DIGITAL NOTES FOR WORK & SCHOOL • Write, type, or sketch with digital ink, highlighters, and text tools. • Mark up anything: PDFs, textbooks, lecture slides, images, and more. • Combine handwriting, typed text, images, diagrams, and sketches on the same page. • Stay organized with customizable folders and subjects that grow with you. FOR PROFESSIONALS: WORK SMARTER AND SAVE TIME • Mark up documents, capture meetings, organize ideas, and present with confidence. • Import and handwrite on any document: PDFs, DOCs, presentations, reports, and more. • Fill out forms in the office or on a job site. • Combine handwriting, text, photos and documents in one place. • Record calls and meetings to transcribe voice in real-time. Audio is synced to your notes so nothing is missed. • Receive automated meeting notes, takeaways, and summaries. • Search handwriting, transcripts, text, and PDFs to quickly revisit decisions and action items. • Present notes, documents, and ideas in full screen, with a laser pointer to guide attention. • View and edit two notes side-by-side to stay focused and productive. • Share a PDF of your note in one tap. FOR STUDENTS: STUDY SMARTER AND ACE EXAMS • Take handwritten notes digitally or annotate lecture slides or your textbooks. • Record lectures and get instant audio transcripts and real-time summaries in your notes. • Audio recordings are synced to the exact moment you write in a note — perfect for lectures. • Import lecture slides, textbook PDFs, and assignments into organized folders and subjects. • Search across handwriting, typed notes, and transcripts to instantly find content from classes. • Study content from your note with personalized quizzes and flashcards to practice with active recall. • Chat with your notes to review concepts, clarify ideas, and prepare for exams. WORK YOUR WAY • Seamlessly switch between handwriting and typing. • Import files instantly and keep everything connected. • Share notes easily to collaborate or get feedback when needed. • Access your notes across iPad, iPhone, Mac, and the web. • Create beautiful notes using templates from the Notability Gallery. UPGRADE TO A NOTABILITY SUBSCRIPTION Notability is free to use. With an upgraded subscription, you can receive: • Unlimited note-taking • AI-powered productivity and study tools • Handwriting recognition and math conversion • Live Audio transcripts • Auto-backup and iCloud sync Download for free on iPad, iPhone, Mac, and web. Privacy Policy: notability.com/privacy Terms of Service: notability.com/terms
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
Capture and organize handwritten notes and sketches digitally. This app preserves the expressiveness of your original drawings with innovative visualization technology. Tag, annotate, and store your creations in the cloud for easy retrieval and sharing.
- Hybrid visualization technology
- Image-based input options
- Natural sketching with Apple Pencil support
- Editable notes and drawings
- Tagging and annotation for search
- Cloud storage integration
- Customizable export styles
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Carbo lets you capture and organize handwritten notes and sketches, bringing handwriting in the digital age, right on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Carbo's innovative visualization technology sets you free from pixel artefacts, while preserving all expressiveness of your original drawings. Collect notes, design sketches, or whiteboard drawings. Tag and annotate your notes for easy retrieval. Store them either on the device itself or in the cloud, with native support for iCloud, Evernote, and Dropbox. Finally, turn your notes and drawings into beautiful creations using a variety of handcrafted export styles and share them with the world. KEY FEATURES • Hybrid visualization technology: note picture is cleaned up and turned into a highly accurate monochrome representation. Carbo’s innovative rendering technology offers both the advantages of vector (sharpness) and bitmap (easy editing) techniques. • Image-based input options: take a new picture, import from camera roll, or import an image from iCloud Drive. • Drawing support: highly accurate and natural sketching capabilities. Full support for Apple Pencil & 3D Touch pressure sensitivity. • Note editing: edit any part of your note, i.e. select, resize, relocate, or remove any element. Make strokes thinner or thicker. • Annotations: add descriptive text to your note. These annotations are archived along with the image, and are globally searchable. • Tag your notes. Tags are colored for easier detection, and will help you classify notes. • Notes can be stored either on your device, or in the cloud using Evernote, Dropbox, and iCloud. • Efficient file-based storage: typical note is 400KB instead of the usual 3MB JPEG of a photo. • Export styles (iOS): choose among 7 beautifully handcrafted styles and their variants to customize your notes (Blackboard/chalks combos, Blueprint, Paper with several pen styles…). • Up to 1200-dpi black-and-white high-fidelity exports for print. • Many sharing options: Twitter, Facebook, AirDrop, Mail, Messages, iCloud Drive, Open in (another app)... • Latest iOS Support: App Search, iPad multitasking, Siri 'Remind Me', 3D Touch shortcuts, modern iOS 14 photo access (browsing & searching). • macOS 11 Big Sur / Mac Catalyst (Optimized for Mac). • Universal app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. • Pro Pack 2 or Pro Plan: one-off purchase to remove the 10-note limit. PRICING You can unlock all features either through Pro Pack 2, a one-time purchase, or through Pro Plan, an affordable subscription. Pro Pack upgrade pricing is also available if you own a previous version. HELP & FEEDBACK Visit creaceed.com/carbo for more information. Send your questions and feedback to carbo@creaceed.com Terms of Use: https://creaceed.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://creaceed.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Notability at 4.8 against Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing's 4.3. Notability also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (459K vs 51). Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing's advantage is review sentiment (55% vs 36%). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. Notability sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month and Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Notability holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Notability has 459K ratings behind it against 51, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 36% of Notability's written reviews are positive against 55% of Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Notability ships an update weekly, Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Notability | Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (459K ratings) — better | 4.3 (51 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 36.1% of reviews | 54.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 459K — better | 51 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #110 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 457 MB | 36 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Ginger Labs | Creaceed SRL |
Customer experience
Notability
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
User reviews
Notability
From 459K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great app for note-taking
- 👍 Smooth handwriting experience
- 📝 Excellent organization and file management
- 🎙️ Useful audio recording feature
- 🔍 Handwriting recognition and search
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues with iCloud
- 🔍 Limited search and organization options
- 🖍️ Frustrating highlighter behavior
- 🔒 Concerns about subscription model
- 🔧 Buggy after recent updates
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
From 51 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for sketching ideas
- 👍 Pleasantly surprised by subscription plan
- 👍 Laser-focused on B&W scanning
- 👍 Excellent for capturing notes
- 👍 Manipulate scans easily
Room to improve
- 👎 Lacking features for daily use
- 👎 Difficult for diagrams and notes
- 👎 Rudimentary editing tools
- 👎 Lacks color
- 👎 Crippled by lack of export options
Bugs and requests
Notability
Reported bugs
4 issues- Notes disappearing or getting corrupted
- Frequent crashes and performance issues
- Palm rejection problems after updates
- Inconsistent behavior when importing files
Requested features
5 requests- Improved folder/hierarchy organization
- More shape recognition and drawing tools
- Side-by-side viewing of multiple notes
- Ability to edit/rename audio recordings
- Better integration with other apps and services
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
Reported bugs
13 issues- Keeps crashing on iPad
- Update bricks app (crashes on launch)
- Carbo keeps crashing
- Sync problem with Evernote
- Exporting pages (archiving) doesn't work
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- Buggy on iOS 9.01 and iPhone 6S
- iPhone keeps switching off sync with Evernote
- App crashes frequently
- File import from iCloud shows files but can't be opened
- Beta Evernote sync does not work
- Randomly selects other bits on the page
- Clunky or doesn't quite work
- Sync with Evernote was easy, but iPhone keeps switching off attempt to sync
Requested features
58 requests- Adding colors
- More pencil sizes
- Ability to handle multi-page docs
- Viable export options (PDF, etc.)
- Ability to bundle pages into PDF
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- Put a title on scans
- Copy and paste selected objects
- Export an entire notebook as PDF
- Desktop client for reassociating tags/annotations
- Save notes as pictures to Photos
- Select multiple vectors and change color/thickness
- iCloud Drive support
- Invert image
- Copy/cut/paste selections
- Export svg file
- OneDrive cloud option
- Scan a whole page of doodles and separate them
- Improve paper edge detection
- Multi-page option
- Text box or drawing function
- Improve captured image quality
- Edge-detection feature
- Better handling of lined paper
- Sync with Evernote
- Choice of line sizes for annotations
- Color picker and highlighter pen
- Support for different writing utensils on one surface
- Multiple page support
- Different sized pens
- More customization for page size
- PDF vector export
- Filter multiple tags
- Re-editing scanned documents
- Cloud sync for notes
- Copy feature for local and cloud storage
- Save to Photos app
- Ability to use notes as pictures
- Select multiple vectors and change color or thickness
- Scan entire page of doodles and separate them
- More cloud options (OneDrive)
- Text box or drawing function
- Better paper edge detection
- Multi-page option
- Improve captured image quality
- Edge-detection
- Better handling of lined paper
- Sync with Evernote
- Choice of line sizes for annotations
- Color picker and highlighter pen
- Support for different writing utensils on one surface
- Multiple page support
- Different sized pens
- More customization for page size
- PDF vector export
- Filter multiple tags
- Re-editing scanned documents
- Cloud sync for notes
- Copy feature for local and cloud storage
In-app purchases
Notability
- Notability Lite$5.991 Month
- Notability Plus$7.991 Month
- Notability Plus$12.993 Months
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- Notability Lite$14.991 Year
- Notability Plus1 Year trial2 variants$19.991 Year
- Notability Plus7 Days trial$19.991 Year
- Notability Plus$19.991 Year
- Notability Pro$19.991 Month
- Notability Pro3 Days trial$99.991 Year
Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing
- Pro Plan (Monthly)7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Pro Plan (Yearly)7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Pro Pack 2$23.99
Questions
Is Notability free?
Is Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing free?
Which has better reviews, Notability or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing?
Do Notability or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing have ads?
Which is updated more often, Notability or Carbo › Pencil Notes & Drawing?
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