Comparison

Note Taker HD vs Brighthammer

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

Head to head
About

Note Taker HD

This app allows for versatile handwritten note-taking and PDF annotation on iPad and iPhone. It offers features like zoomed ink, shapes, typed text, and image insertion, with flexible organization and sharing options.

Highlights
  • Zoomed ink for detailed writing
  • PDF annotation capabilities
  • Insert photos and shapes
  • Typed text blocks
  • Organize with folders and tags
  • Export as PDF
Features
Read full description

Zoomed ink, PDF markup, photos, shapes, typed text, folders and tagging, extensive AirPlay control, and much more. The latest upgrade of one of the first note taking apps designed specifically for the Apple iPad and now also available for the Apple iPhone, Note Taker HD has long been known as a powerful and stable application for writing and organizing handwritten notes and diagrams. Note Taker HD can also be used to annotate PDF files. It can shrink your writing so you can easily fit a lot of text on a page. You can read the reduced-size "ink" as if you had written those letters with a very fine pen. It gives you solid functionality and control to produce the pages you need. Documents are flexibly organized by tags, date/time last modified, favorites, and more, with a scrolling list of thumbnail images of part of each page to help you find them later. You can email one or more pages as a single PDF file, "Open In" other apps, or, if your device supports it, print. Note Taker HD lets you create pages by writing on the screen with your finger or an iPad/iPhone-compatible stylus. You can either write directly on the page for large drawings, or have the "ink" you write shrunk down. You can write in large letters on the screen rather than trying to make tiny motions like a pencil. You just keep writing and Note Taker HD automatically adds new writing next to the old. To quickly correct mistakes, it has multi-level undo and redo buttons as well as an eraser -- just drag your finger over the page to erase the "ink" under it. You can zoom in and out on a page using the pinch gesture while viewing or editing. The Zoomed Editing window lets you see both a zoomed-out overview and a zoomed-in close-up writing area at the same time. You can use "Open In" in other apps send PDF files to Note Taker HD for annotation. Other features include: - Pages organized into documents and folders - Typed blocks of text with optional borders - 60+ highly customizable shapes - Insert and crop images from Photo Albums, Pasteboard, or the iPad/iPhone camera - Custom backgrounds from images or PDF pages - Free templates and clip art on the support web site - VGA/HDMI/AirPlay support with zoom, pan, and a moveable pointer - Wrist guard to avoid inadvertent touches - Layout variations better suited to some left-handed users - Optional fields in output footers like in a word processor - Extensive built-in help - Smooth and crisp ink on screen and in PDF output - Share editable copies of your documents with others - Backup to a single file for off-iPad/iPhone storage - Password protected folders - Support for the iOS Data Protection API - Support for languages written right-to-left - Full-screen preview mode - Automatic advance and auto-return in zoomed editing - Copy/Cut/Paste between pages, rotate/resize ink Note Taker HD was designed and programmed by Dan Bricklin, the same person who over 40 years ago came up with VisiCalc, the pioneering electronic spreadsheet that made working with numbers on a personal computer so easy. To see it in action, click on the Support link here or go directly to www.notetakerhd.com.

About

Brighthammer

Features
Read full description

Brighthammer is a fast, simple field documentation app built for independent property restoration companies. Document water losses completely — photos, moisture readings, dry logs, floor plans, and carrier-ready reports — with an app your techs learn in under 5 minutes. BUILT FOR RESTORATION, NOT GENERIC CONSTRUCTION - Photos and notes organized by room, automatically - Complete water mitigation workflow: moisture readings, drying logs, equipment tracking, and moisture maps - IICRC S500 equipment calculator - AI-Assisted Dry Logs: point your camera at your moisture meter and readings are extracted automatically — temperature, humidity, and moisture content, no manual entry - LiDAR floor plan scanning: walk the loss with your iPhone and get an accurate floor plan in minutes (requires a LiDAR-equipped iPhone or iPad) WORKS WHERE YOU WORK - Offline-first architecture means everything keeps working in basements, crawl spaces, and dead zones — your documentation syncs when you're back in signal.

Screenshots

Note Taker HD4 screens
Brighthammer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Brighthammer at Free against Note Taker HD's $4.99. Brighthammer also leads on update cadence (every 6 days vs every 4 months). On ads, in-app purchases, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Brighthammer is free to download; Note Taker HD costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Note Taker HD ships an update every 4 months, Brighthammer every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 22, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Note Taker HD versus Brighthammer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNote Taker HDBrighthammer
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating4.0 (140 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews83.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings140 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB65 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSoftware GardenBrighthammer Inc.

Bugs and requests

Note Taker HD

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Crashes when exporting PDFs
  • Crashes when adding photos
  • Crashes and loses data
  • Exporting to email not working well

Requested features

9 requests
  • Evernote integration
  • Ability to scroll between pages
  • Ability to underline, bold or italicize typed text
  • Ability to group objects together
  • Voice recording and clip function
Show 4 more
  • Dropbox/iCloud sync and backup
  • Ability to convert handwriting to text
  • Folders and sub-folders for better organization
  • Ability to rotate objects

Brighthammer

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Note Taker HD

No in-app purchases

None

Brighthammer

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Note Taker HD free?
Note Taker HD costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Brighthammer free?
Brighthammer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Note Taker HD or Brighthammer have ads?
Neither Note Taker HD nor Brighthammer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Note Taker HD or Brighthammer?
Note Taker HD ships an update every 4 months, and Brighthammer every 6 days. Most recently, Note Taker HD was updated on October 22, 2026 and Brighthammer on October 16, 2026.

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