Comparison

Microsoft OneNote vs Notes Writer

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
Read full description

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

Notes Writer

This app is a comprehensive note-taking and PDF editing solution for mobile devices. It allows users to write, format, and organize notes, annotate PDFs, fill forms, and scan documents. The app offers advanced editing tools, powerful search, and seamless sharing and export options.

Highlights
  • Write and format notes
  • Annotate PDFs and fill forms
  • Organize with unlimited notebooks
  • Powerful full-text search
  • Document scanning
  • Sync with cloud services
  • Export to multiple formats
Features
Read full description

You have lecture notes to take, a story to tell, article to publish, whether it’s today’s journal entry, tomorrow’s thesis, highlight important things in ebooks and PDFs, fill out a PDF form or get the most from your business meetings. Notes Writer is an excellent assistant in study and business, also being effective for writing down your ideas and thoughts and sharing them! Students, teachers, writers, doctors, journalists, scholars and business professionals use Notes Writer daily to store notes, annotations, memos, signed PDFs, papers, highlighted PDF text-books, lectures and more. With Notes Writer you can: + WRITE. EDIT. FORMAT · Write Everywhere: Use Notes Writer as an stand-alone writing app even if you don’t have a computer or you are offline in the wilds · Create rich text format (RTF) and advanced Markdown (MD) documents · Define margins, headers/footers, paper sizes, MLA and APA style format · Live counters: characters, words, sentences, lines, Avg. Word length, Words per sentence & reading time · Text to Speech for proofreading · Dictation lets you speak text instead of typing · Typewriter: Distraction-Free mode, letting you focus on what you’re writing · Over 30 languages typing support including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic & Hebrew · Extra keys: tab, forward delete, cursor up/down/left/right, etc. + ANNOTATE PDFs. FILL FORMS. SIGN DOCUMENTS. · PDF Annotations: highlight, strikeout, underline, notes, voice notes, pencil, stamp, sign... · Fill out forms. Supports PDF AcroForms standard · Sign with your own signature documents, contracts, forms · Digital Signature Validation + ORGANIZE. STRUCTURE. FIND. · Organize your work in unlimited notebooks, folders and subfolders · Create notebooks and projects in your own tree-like structure: Sections, Classes, Lectures, Grades, Drafts, Folders, Chapters, Research, etc. · Design the cover of your notebooks · Full-text search your library of documents and projects + SCAN NOTES. RESEARCH. PDF LIBRARY · Split view: Open two PDFs or handwritten notes simultaneously on screen. Compare or use them as book and paper · Full PDF reader and manager included for reference files, text books, ebooks, articles, resources, papers, etc. · Use the camera of your iPad/iPhone to scan documents, notes, recipes, tickets, etc. as PDF · Open PowerPoint, Word and Excel files + SHARE NOTES. EXPORT PDF, HTML… · Open attachments directly from the Mail app · Sync via iCloud, Dropbox, Box, WebDAV and Google Drive · Convert to multiple formats RTF, Markdown, PDF, ePub, HTML, RTFD, TXT, etc. · Zip folders/notebooks and email them + AUTOMATIC BACKUPS. BE SAFE. PROTECT YOUR WORK · Protect your work with an app security passcode · Protect any folder or project with a passcode · Automatic Backups of your notes and notebooks Notes Writer is more than an innovative, fast and reliable note-taking, PDF annotator and writing app designed for anyone who take notes or writes. This is a smart notepad and writing workspace for your iPad and iPhone. Privacy Policy http://www.noteswriter.com/Kairoos_Privacy_Policy.html EULA https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Microsoft OneNote4 screens
Notes Writer4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ratings volume: Microsoft OneNote at 1.1M against Notes Writer's 7.3K. Microsoft OneNote also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.5) and chart position (#67 vs unranked). Notes Writer's advantage is iOS requirement (16.4 vs 18.0). On price, review sentiment, update cadence 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. Microsoft OneNote sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Notes Writer sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Microsoft OneNote holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Microsoft OneNote has 1.1M ratings behind it against 7.3K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 45% and 45% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. Both last shipped on September 24, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Microsoft OneNote versus Notes Writer: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMicrosoft OneNoteNotes Writer
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.1M ratings) — better4.5 (7.3K ratings)
Positive reviews44.8% of reviews45.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.1M — better7.3K
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#67 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size404 MB371 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMicrosoft CorporationKairoos Solutions SL

Customer experience

Microsoft OneNote

All ratings1,064,189 ratings
Positive93.5%
Neutral2.7%
Negative3.7%
Written reviews2,678 reviews
Positive44.8%
Neutral12.1%
Negative43.1%

Notes Writer

All ratings7,289 ratings
Positive86.8%
Neutral5.1%
Negative8.1%
Written reviews951 reviews
Positive45.2%
Neutral15.2%
Negative39.5%

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

Notes Writer

From 7.3K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Smooth writing experience
  • 💡 Versatile note-taking features
  • 🔒 Good privacy
  • 👍 Useful for various purposes (notes, PDF annotations, etc.)

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Crashes and freezes
  • 🔒 Limiting free version with paywalls
  • 🐛 Bugs with erasing, page management, and file corruption
  • 🐛 Laggy performance and slow loading times

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

Notes Writer

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Notes randomly disappearing or getting corrupted
  • Inability to recover deleted documents
  • Unexpected behavior when adding/deleting pages
  • Syncing issues and broken links between documents

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add more brushes and pen customization options
  • Improve the clipping/selection tool
  • Implement OCR and handwriting search
  • Provide a Mac version

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
7 purchases

Notes Writer

Subscriptions2
  • Notes Writer Unlock All and AI3 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Notes Writer Unlock All and AI3 Days trial$14.991 Year
One-time5
  • Full Version Unlock Pro$3.99
  • Full Version Unlock Pro$4.99
  • Full Version Unlock Pro2 variants$5.99
Show 2 more
  • Full Version Unlock Pro$6.99
  • Lifetime Pro Full Unlock$9.99

Questions

Is Microsoft OneNote free?
Microsoft OneNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Notes Writer free?
Notes Writer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Microsoft OneNote or Notes Writer?
Microsoft OneNote is rated higher. Microsoft OneNote averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.1M ratings, while Notes Writer averages 4.5 from 7.3K ratings.
Do Microsoft OneNote or Notes Writer have ads?
Neither Microsoft OneNote nor Notes Writer shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Microsoft OneNote or Notes Writer?
Microsoft OneNote ships an update weekly, and Notes Writer weekly. Most recently, Microsoft OneNote was updated on September 24, 2026 and Notes Writer on September 24, 2026.

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