Scribes PRO vs Maho Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Scribes PRO
This app offers a versatile digital notebook for handwritten notes, freehand drawing, and text editing. It supports audio recording, image import, and technical drawing tools with grid options. Securely archive your notebooks and print them wirelessly.
- Handwritten note-taking with customizable pens
- Freehand drawing with grid and technical tools
- Integrated text editor with font and angle options
- High-quality stereo audio recording
- Image import and annotation
- Secure, password-protected archive
- Wireless printing support
Read full descriptionHide full description
Do you need a notebook with lines or squares with endless pages where you can take your freehand notes in the same way and with the same speed as when you use the pen? Need a few sheets of white paper for freehand drawing and then enter the text written with the keyboard and being able to choose font, color, size and angle of the text? Do you want to photograph transparencies of a presentation in real time and add notes or highlight parts? Do you need to record audio while taking notes of lectures on the book with an infinite number of pages? Need a secure archive (password protected) to save countless notebooks? Want to listen a recorded university lecture and add or correct the notes taken during the lesson? In your notes you have to add computer-aided technical drawings by exporting them ex. from FingerCAD and writing notes on the CAD design or using CAD technical drawing tools like lines, rectangles, circles with the drawing grid option activated? Need to print the pages of your notebook when You come back to home (using the new technology of wireless printing "AirPrint" or PDF)? Do you think that writing with a pen is faster than writing with the keyboard? "Scribes" is the right application for You! Write mode: - Writing handwritten text (the same way as you use a pen/highlighter on a notebook, with the stroke, the color, the transparency “ALPHA” that you want - dotted lines with ALPHA = 0) - Writing text using the integrated text editor of Scribes (you can use different fonts, different angles, different sizes and colors on the same page or on different pages of the notebook) Drawing mode: - Draw free-hand using many colors/transparency and the brush size you want (both on notebook lines/squares and on white sheets) - Enable or disable the drawing grid: enable the grid together with the line, circle, rectangle drawing tools (with optional color fill) for simple technical drawings (disable the grid to write some freehand notes on the technical drawings or use the text editor of Scribes to insert for example measurements) - Filter for wrist touch Multimedia Support: - Record high quality stereo audio with 32Bit 44Khz, infinite recording time (on .caf file) in the background (while recording, you can take notes on notebook) - Import images in the pages of the notebook in real-time, taken by camera and stored in the photo albums of the device (you can import many images, for each page of the book, on which you can write notes) - Listen the audio recordings with the built-in player of Scribes - Photo camera support (acquire the photo camera's images directly from Scribes software) Navigation: - Fast book pages change - Animated zoom pinching the screen with two fingers - Animated pan dragging two fingers on the screen - Reset pan and zoom settings: full zoom out pinching the screen with two fingers or by pressing and holding down two fingers on the screen Management of books stored in the "Scribes Archive": - Archive of notebooks (you can save / copy an infinite number of notebooks in the archive) - Add books (file sharing, copy) - Sharing books with other apps - Rename notebooks - Delete notebooks - Duplicate notebooks Sharing books and audio files recorded with: - Dropbox (remote storage systems, cloud) - Apple FILE - AirDrop - Open In - iTunes File Sharing - email - tapeRecorder app Print: - AirPrint - PDF App type: - UNIVERSAL APP (you pay only once and runs on all your devices) * www.ngcybit.it Scribes PRO Quick Users Guide is available at URL: http://www.ngcybit.it/iTunesApp/scribes/scribes-pro-quick-users-guide.html *
Maho Notes
A beautiful Markdown note-taking app that keeps your words secure. Notes are stored as plain .md files, with options for local storage or syncing via iCloud or GitHub. It offers advanced search capabilities and supports various Markdown features.
- Plain .md file storage
- iCloud and GitHub sync options
- On-device semantic search
- Full CommonMark + GFM support
- KaTeX math and Mermaid diagrams
- Hierarchical collections and vaults
Read full descriptionHide full description
Maho Notes is a markdown-based note-taking app for people who care about their words — and want to keep them. Every note is a plain .md file on your device. No proprietary format, no vendor lock-in, no servers you don't control. Sync through your own iCloud, your own GitHub repo, or keep notes purely local — your choice. FREE, NO STRINGS Maho Notes is completely free. Every feature is included — no subscription, no paywall, no ads, no account to create. If the app earns a place in your workflow, there's an optional tip jar in Settings. Tipping unlocks nothing; it just says thanks. A NOTES APP THAT SPEAKS YOUR LANGUAGE Full multilingual support, including search across English, 中文 (Traditional Chinese), 日本語 (Japanese), and 한국어 (Korean) — powered by a CJK-aware tokenizer that actually understands word boundaries in each language. Add furigana to Japanese kanji, Zhuyin to Mandarin, Tâi-lô to Taiwanese, or readings to Korean — all with one simple syntax: {漢字|ふりがな}. THREE WAYS TO SEARCH • Keyword search — fast SQLite FTS5 across every note • Semantic search — on-device vector embeddings find ideas, not just words • Hybrid — both, fused into one ranked list Models run entirely on-device. Nothing about your notes leaves your hardware. WRITTEN IN MARKDOWN, RENDERED BEAUTIFULLY • Full CommonMark + GitHub Flavored Markdown • KaTeX math equations • Mermaid diagrams • Syntax-highlighted code blocks • Ruby annotations for any language • Image and asset embedding • Tables, task lists, footnotes ORGANIZE YOUR WAY Vaults hold collections. Collections hold notes. Drag-and-drop reordering, custom icons and colors, hierarchical sub-collections, and per-collection ordering — all stored in plain YAML you can read. • iCloud — seamless across your Apple devices • GitHub — version your notes as a private repo, sync through your own account using GitHub's official Device Flow login (no third-party server in the middle) • Device-only — keep everything offline Conflicts get clearly-named files (note.conflict-DeviceName.md), never silent overwrites. UNIVERSAL APP One free download covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Optimized layouts for each: a focus-friendly stack on iPhone, a three-column workspace on iPad and Mac, with the same vault wherever you are.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Maho Notes at Free against Scribes PRO's $2.99. Maho Notes also leads on rating (5.0 vs 2.0) and update cadence (every 5 months vs every 38 months). Scribes PRO's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3). On ratings volume, ads, 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
Maho Notes is free to download; Scribes PRO costs $2.99 up front. Maho Notes sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Scribes PRO asks for nothing beyond the download.
Maho Notes holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.
Scribes PRO ships an update every 38 months, Maho Notes every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Scribes PRO | Maho Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 2.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 20.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 38 months | Every 5 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gianluca Natalini | Kuo-Chuan Pan |
Customer experience
Scribes PRO
Maho Notes
In-app purchases
Scribes PRO
No in-app purchases
Maho Notes
- Small Tip$1.99
- Medium Tip$4.99
- Large Tip$9.99









