Comparison

Microsoft OneNote vs Google Keep

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

Head to head
About

Microsoft OneNote

Capture thoughts, ideas, and plans in a digital notepad. Organize, search, and secure your notes, memos, and sketches. Sync across devices for access anywhere, anytime. Collaborate with others on shared notepads.

Highlights
  • Capture thoughts and ideas
  • Digital sketchbook
  • Organize and search notes
  • Sync notes via OneDrive
  • Collaborate on shared notepads
  • Handwritten notes and drawings
Features
Currently charting
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Supercharge your productivity with OneNote. Organize thoughts and ideas, and simplify planning important moments with your digital note-taking. Smart notes on your phone can sync across all your devices with Microsoft OneNote. Combine the power of digital ink with the natural feel of a pen to help you sketch out your inspirations. Take smart notes and capture every detail with voice transcription. Our writing tools make it easy to capture your notes, review your content later, and access AI studying. Take smart notes, share writing ideas, organize note-taking, and collaborate on your creative ideas and writing - all with Microsoft OneNote. ONENOTE APP FEATURES: AI-POWERED COPILOT NOTEBOOKS • Make sense of your files with AI chat • Summarize meetings, classes, and discussions easily from your notes • Listen to audio overviews, created directly from the notes you take AI NOTE-TAKING WITH HOMEPAGE AND QUICK CAPTURE • Streamlined writing: Find notes from your connected accounts in one place to easily create, find, & act on your notes. Now with Samsung Notes integration. • AI workflows with Copilot: Capture text, voice, ink or images to your notepad with Quick Capture • Smart notes: Capture smart notes in ink. Click the pen button & write down thoughts • Write smart notes, draw & clip things from the web to add to your writing notebook SCAN PICTURES & EXTRACT TEXT FROM WRITING • Note-Taking Scanner: Scan documents, pictures, or files to extract writing • Capture images to extract text from documents & more • Apply different filters to change colors, add ink, crop images & more SMART NOTES & AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION • Voice smart notes: Take accurate notes with voice dictation • Click the Mic button to record, then click it again to end recording & save the file • Dictate smart notes in 27 languages (note some languages are in preview) & use Auto-Punctutation to format NOTE-TAKING THAT HELPS YOU ACHIEVE MORE • Organize writing using to-do lists, follow-up items, marks for what’s important & custom labels • Use OneNote as a notebook, journal or a notepad for work or AI studying • Notepad badge hovers on screen & lets you quickly write your thoughts down any time • NEW Sticky notes - Make quick memos & note-taking COLLABORATE WRITING & SHARE SMART NOTES • Write meeting notes, brainstorm projects, & draw attention to important points • Take notes & save ideas across your favorite devices, no matter what device your team likes to use BETTER TOGETHER WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE • OneNote is part of the Office family & works great with your favorite apps, such as Excel or Word, to help you do more Write notes, save ideas & keep up with your to-do list with Microsoft OneNote. APP REQUIREMENTS: OneNote is free on iPhone and many other devices. Get started today! Download OneNote and sign in with your Microsoft Account or the account assigned to you by your work or school. Monthly Microsoft 365 subscriptions purchased from the app will be charged to your App Store account and will automatically renew within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period unless auto-renewal is disabled beforehand. You can manage your subscriptions in your App Store account settings. This app is provided by either Microsoft or a third-party app publisher and is subject to a separate privacy statement and terms and conditions. Data provided through the use of this store and this app may be accessible to Microsoft or the third-party app publisher, as applicable, and transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States or any other country where Microsoft or the app publisher and their affiliates or service providers maintain facilities. Please refer to the Microsoft Software License Terms for Microsoft 365. See “License Agreement” link under Information. By installing the app, you agree to these terms and conditions.

About

Google Keep

Capture, edit, and share notes and lists across all your devices. Organize with labels and colors, and set time or location-based reminders. Collaborate with others in real-time for shared tasks.

Highlights
  • Capture notes, lists, photos, and audio
  • Organize with labels and colors
  • Set time and location-based reminders
  • Collaborate on notes and lists
  • Transcribe voice memos
  • Extract text from images
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• Capture, edit, share, and collaborate on your notes on any device, anywhere. • Add notes, lists, photos, and audio to Keep. • Organize your notes with labels and colors. • Set and forget. Get reminded about a note at the right time or place. • Record a voice memo and have it automatically transcribed. • Grab the text from an image to help you quickly find that note again through search. WHEN AND WHERE YOU NEED IT Need to remember to pick up some groceries? Set a location-based reminder to pull up your grocery list right when you get to the store. Need to finish a to-do? Set a time-based reminder to make sure you never miss a thing. SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS Next time you go to the store, share your shopping list on Keep and watch as items get checked off in real time. No need for text messages back and forth. Get things done together, faster. FIND WHAT YOU NEED, FAST Quickly filter and search for notes by color and other attributes like lists with the label “To-dos”, audio notes with reminders or just see shared notes. Find what you're looking for even faster, and let Keep do the remembering for you. ALWAYS WITHIN REACH Keep works on your phone, tablet and computer. Everything you add to Keep syncs across your devices so your important stuff is always with you. Try Google Keep on the web at http://keep.google.com and find it in the Chrome Web Store at http://g.co/keepinchrome.

Screenshots

Microsoft OneNote4 screens
Google Keep4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Google Keep at none against Microsoft OneNote's 3. Microsoft OneNote's advantage is ratings volume (1.1M vs 29K) and device support (4 vs 2). On price, rating, review sentiment and update cadence 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. Microsoft OneNote sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Google Keep asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Microsoft OneNote against 4.6 for Google Keep. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Microsoft OneNote has 1.1M ratings behind it against 29K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 45% of Microsoft OneNote's written reviews are positive against 42% of Google Keep's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Microsoft OneNote ships an update weekly, Google Keep every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 7 level
Microsoft OneNote versus Google Keep: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMicrosoft OneNoteGoogle Keep
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.1M ratings) — better4.6 (29K ratings)
Positive reviews44.6% of reviews — better42.3% of reviews
Number of ratings1.1M — better29K
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
Best chart rank#69 — better#74
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size409 MB212 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMicrosoft CorporationGoogle

Customer experience

Microsoft OneNote

All ratings1,067,774 ratings
Positive93.5%
Neutral2.7%
Negative3.8%
Written reviews2,745 reviews
Positive44.6%
Neutral12.0%
Negative43.5%

Google Keep

All ratings29,002 ratings
Positive89.3%
Neutral3.6%
Negative7.1%
Written reviews1,244 reviews
Positive42.3%
Neutral16.7%
Negative41.0%

User reviews

Microsoft OneNote

From 1.1M App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Simple, works well
  • 👍 Great for planning
  • 👍 Powerful note-taking app
  • 👍 Invaluable tool for note taking
  • 👍 Used for years, couldn't be without this app

Room to improve

  • 🔨 Could be better
  • 🔨 Formatting issues on mobile app
  • 🔨 Buggy widget, no dark app icon
  • 🐛 Glitchy, crashes often
  • 🐛 Terrible sync speeds

Google Keep

From 29K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Lean and efficient
  • 👍 Minimalistic and easy to use
  • 🤝 Good for collaboration
  • 💡 Useful for note-taking and lists

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Buggy and crashes frequently
  • 🔄 Sync issues and data loss
  • 🕰️ Slow performance and lag
  • 📱 Limited functionality on mobile
  • 🔒 Lack of security features

Bugs and requests

Microsoft OneNote

Reported bugs

9 issues
  • Cursor positioning is erratic
  • Search function does not work well
  • Ink to text conversion missing on iPad
  • Syncing issues, notes not syncing properly across devices
  • Crashing, freezing, and performance issues
Show 4 more
  • Scrolling issues, page jumping to top unexpectedly
  • Eraser tool deletes more than intended
  • Formatting issues when importing/exporting
  • Inconsistent behavior between desktop and mobile versions

Requested features

11 requests
  • Native Markdown support and merged cell support
  • Ruler, ability to choose or create notebook covers
  • Ability to password protect app or individual notebooks
  • Option to open on last opened page instead of Home
  • Ability to turn note into task that appears on To Do and Planner
Show 6 more
  • Search for tags, more Evernote-like search features
  • Ability to select text using 3D Touch
  • Option to limit page to A4 size with framing
  • Pencil feature like Notes app for drawing
  • Ability to delete notebooks
  • Ability to delete notes from Apple devices

Google Keep

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Notes randomly duplicating or disappearing
  • Checkboxes not working as expected
  • Keyboard issues and text input problems
  • Refresh failures and connectivity problems

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for widgets
  • Improve text formatting options
  • Introduce folder/category organization
  • Enable password protection for notes
  • Enhance search and sorting capabilities

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Microsoft OneNote

Subscriptions3
  • Microsoft 365 Personal1 Month trial$9.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Personal$11.991 Month
  • Microsoft 365 Family$12.991 Month
None

Google Keep

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Microsoft OneNote free?
Microsoft OneNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Google Keep free?
Google Keep is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Microsoft OneNote or Google Keep?
Microsoft OneNote is rated higher. Microsoft OneNote averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.1M ratings, while Google Keep averages 4.6 from 29K ratings.
Do Microsoft OneNote or Google Keep have ads?
Neither Microsoft OneNote nor Google Keep shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Microsoft OneNote or Google Keep?
Microsoft OneNote ships an update weekly, and Google Keep every 6 days. Most recently, Microsoft OneNote was updated on October 15, 2026 and Google Keep on October 14, 2026.
Which is more popular, Microsoft OneNote or Google Keep?
Microsoft OneNote currently peaks at #69 in the App Store charts, and Google Keep at #74. Chart position reflects recent download velocity rather than total install base.

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