Comparison

Zealous Notes vs Marginalias

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

Head to head
About

Zealous Notes

Organize your thoughts with a versatile note-taking application. Link related notes, embed various media files directly, and enhance your text with markup tools. Features include searchable PDFs, video playback, and audio transcription.

Highlights
  • Stackable and linked notes
  • Inline PDF, video, and audio embedding
  • Searchable and mark-upable PDFs
  • Audio transcription
  • Hashtag organization
  • Marker mode with zoom
  • Calendar event linking
Features
Read full description

A lot like the Notes app you're used to, plus some added features: • Open several notes as a stack. - related notes can be linked together. • Subdivide your notes into Sections • PDFs, Video & Audio files attach inline, alongside your notes' other contents. - PDFs can be zoomed, scrolled, searched & marked-up. - Videos can play picture-in-picture or full-screen - Voice Notes audio files can be transcribed (with your permission) • Keep related notes together: - embed related notes as attachments - assign relatable #hashtags to your notes • Marker Mode - mark anywhere inside or outside of your notes - link markup with your highlighted or underlined text. - zoom-in for more precise drawings. • Link notes to your Calendar events (with your permission) • Case sensitive Find/Replace/Replace-All • Multiple Line-Spacing options See the included `Getting Started` guide for more, including several additional features available from within the app's Settings.

About

Marginalias

Features
Read full description

Keep the quote with its source Evidence Board collects exact passages across your documents, with topics and notes. Verify each clip against the local source and share a focused Markdown evidence sheet. • Open a document → Clip evidence. Enter an exact passage of at least three characters and choose its occurrence. • Save a topic and note with the clip. Open Evidence Board from the library to find and review clips. • Open a clip to verify its quote and source hash, edit notes, or share the visible board. Exact case-sensitive matching shows up to 32 occurrences. A source hash identifies the local text version; it is not proof of authorship or truth. Up to 256 clips and 1 MiB are retained. Unavailable or changed sources are reported. Marginalias is a private reading companion for your own documents. Import text-based PDFs, plain text, or Markdown notes, then use on-device intelligence to summarize, ask questions, and pull out useful structure without sending your content to a developer server. Build a local library of documents, open the source text whenever you need it, and keep AI output close to the material it came from. Marginalias is designed for focused review, research, note cleanup, study, and document triage. Features: - Import text-based PDFs, plain text, and Markdown - Keep a searchable local document library - Generate concise document summaries - Ask questions grounded in document excerpts - Inspect exact evidence excerpts, character ranges, and PDF pages behind generated claims - See the retrieved context used for each answer - Extract key points, action items, outlines, and glossary terms - Copy and share generated output - Use light, dark, or system appearance - Review a bundled sample document before importing your own files Privacy: Marginalias does not require an account, does not include analytics or advertising SDKs, and does not collect your documents or AI output. Documents and generated output stay on your device. Device note: AI features use Apple on-device intelligence. If Apple Intelligence is unavailable or not enabled, importing and reading documents still work and the app explains the requirement.

Screenshots

Zealous Notes2 screens
Marginalias3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Zealous Notes at every 8 days against Marginalias's every 5 weeks. Marginalias's advantage is price ($3.99 vs $4.99). 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

Zealous Notes costs $4.99 and Marginalias $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Zealous Notes ships an update every 8 days, Marginalias every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Zealous Notes versus Marginalias: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterZealous NotesMarginalias
Price$4.99$3.99 — better
Rating4.3 (3 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.026.0
Further details — not scored
Size265 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJason BrowningRobert Corbin

In-app purchases

None

Zealous Notes

No in-app purchases

None

Marginalias

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Zealous Notes free?
Zealous Notes costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Marginalias free?
Marginalias costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Zealous Notes or Marginalias have ads?
Neither Zealous Notes nor Marginalias shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Zealous Notes or Marginalias?
Zealous Notes ships an update every 8 days, and Marginalias every 5 weeks. Most recently, Zealous Notes was updated on October 10, 2026 and Marginalias on October 9, 2026.

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