CanvasNote vs Lemon Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
CanvasNote
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The Ultimate Note-Taking App CanvasNote is the indispensable app for everyone who loves to write with a pen and seeks the ultimate note-taking experience. This app is specifically designed for use with a pen and offers a plethora of features to perfect your handwritten notes. It naturally supports the Apple Pencil, as well as alternatives compatible with the iPad or iPad Pro. Here is a detailed overview of everything CanvasNote has to offer: Outstanding Note-Taking Features: Integrated Templates: Choose from a selection of templates, including squared or lined paper, as well as special templates for music notes and mathematics. You can write in both portrait and landscape orientation. The innovative "Own Templates" area: Here, you can not only create individual categories but also share your templates with other users and save them directly on the iPad. A backup of the template folders can also be created to easily restore them on a new device. Effortlessly import templates via the iPad's photo gallery or as a PDF document and explore the variety of free note templates available online in image format or as PDF templates, to save on the iPad and import into CanvasNote. Create your own template collection, neatly divided into categories, to quickly find and apply them in your notes. Customizable Pens and Colors: Switch between different pen types, tools, and colors to give your notes a personal touch. Creating your own color palette is also possible. With three integrated sliders for the individual RGB channels, any conceivable color can be mixed. There are tools for circles, rectangles, and a special line pen that allows for the perfect drawing of vertical and horizontal lines. The line thickness and pressure sensitivity of each pen and tool can be individually adjusted via sliders. The eraser function is also available. Organization and Management: Dynamically Growing Folders: Create folders for different notes that dynamically expand as you add new pages. This keeps you always organized. Image and Document Integration: Add images from the iPad's photo gallery and write directly on them. Use the iPad's internal camera to capture documents and insert them into your notes. The integrated scan function allows for perfect capture of external documents via the iPad camera or photo gallery. Comprehensive PDF Integration: CanvasNote offers extensive PDF features. Import and edit PDF files with ease and export your edited documents in no time. Versatile Application Areas: Perfect for School, Work, and Personal Use: CanvasNote is excellent for use in school, at work, and for personal notes. Whether you want to create lecture notes, ideas, or drawings, this app is the right choice. Intuitive Management: Clear Folders: All your notes are stored neatly in folders within the app and can be easily viewed and organized. Requires a Digital Stylus: Please note that CanvasNote requires a stylus for input (Apple Pencil or iPad-compatible alternative) and cannot be written or drawn on with fingers. Experience the ultimate note-taking experience with CanvasNote and enhance your productivity and creativity. Get CanvasNote now and dive into the world of digital handwritten notes!
Lemon Notes
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Lemon Notes: Note Taking & PDF Annotation Turn your iPhone and iPad into a digital notebook for handwritten notes, PDF annotation, digital planning, and drawing. Capture lecture notes, organize study materials, keep a journal, or plan your week. Write with touch on iPhone or Apple Pencil on iPad, and bring your notebooks across both devices with iCloud sync. HANDWRITING, DRAWING & STICKY NOTES ⢠Write and sketch with pen, pencil, highlighter, fountain pen, watercolor, crayon, monoline, and more. ⢠Customize colors, stroke widths, and smoothing for your writing style. ⢠Use stroke and pixel erasers, lasso selection, copy, duplicate, resize, and move tools. ⢠Turn rough sketches into clean geometric shapes with Smart Shape Recognition. Smart lines snap precisely to nearby endpoints to keep diagrams connected. ⢠Organize drawings with editable layers. ⢠Add customizable sticky notes for reminders, study tips, and ideas, with improved canvas touch controls. PDF ANNOTATION & DOCUMENTS ⢠Import PDFs from Files to write, draw, highlight, underline, and annotate lecture slides, textbooks, worksheets, and documents. ⢠Expand PDF margins for extra handwritten notes and bookmark important pages. ⢠Import PowerPoint presentations and convert them into PDF notes. ⢠Add photos, scanned documents, images, and emoji stickers. ⢠Export full notebooks or selected pages as shareable PDFs. DIGITAL NOTEBOOKS, PLANNERS & TEMPLATES ⢠Create multi-page notebooks for school, university, work, and personal projects. ⢠Choose blank, lined, grid, dotted, Cornell notes, checklist, daily, weekly, monthly, habit tracker, mind map, table, music, guitar tab, storyboard, and other templates. ⢠Personalize paper colors, spacing, line width, backgrounds, orientation, and covers. ⢠Choose A3, A4, A5, A6, B5, Letter, Legal, and Tabloid paper sizes. ⢠Explore 80 creative notebook covers, organized into three categories. ⢠Keep class notes, meeting notes, and journals organized with folders and nested folders. ⢠Protect notebooks or folders with a password and recover notebooks from Recently Deleted. STUDY TOOLS & EVERYDAY PRODUCTIVITY ⢠Find handwritten notes with handwriting recognition and search. ⢠Record audio with optional live speech transcription for lectures and meetings. ⢠Solve handwritten arithmetic with Automatic Math. ⢠Stay focused with a stopwatch, countdown timer, and built-in calculator. ⢠Open two notes together with split-screen editing. ⢠Preview pages, use Reader Mode, and let pages adapt to dark mode. ⢠Watch YouTube videos or browse the web alongside your notes. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS ⢠Quickly create a note, reopen your last note, and access recent notes and search with sleek widgets for iPhone and iPad. ICLOUD SYNC & LEMON STORE ⢠Enable iCloud sync to continue your notebooks on iPhone and iPad. ⢠Back up PDF notes to iCloud Drive. ⢠Discover more notebook templates, covers, digital planners, study sheets, engineering templates, calendars, and digital stationery in the Lemon Store. MORE LANGUAGES ⢠Now supports Arabic, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese, with context-aware translations, a right-to-left Arabic layout, and localized plural forms. START YOUR NEXT NOTEBOOK No separate Lemon Notes account is required. Create up to three notebooks for free. One optional annual subscription unlocks unlimited notebook creation on both iPhone and iPad. Use the same Apple Account to access your purchases on both devices, and enable iCloud sync to keep your notes in sync. Purchases can be restored at any time. Privacy Policy: https://lemonnotes.site/privacy/ Terms of Service: https://lemonnotes.site/terms/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: CanvasNote at 15.0 against Lemon Notes's 17.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. CanvasNote sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Lemon Notes sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $3.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
CanvasNote ships an update every 5 days, Lemon Notes every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CanvasNote | Lemon Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days ā better | Every 10 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad ā better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 ā better | 17.0 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 44 MB | 152 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Nicolai Kummer | NEFISE ZELIHA BAYAR |
In-app purchases
CanvasNote
- Unlock Full Version$1.99
Lemon Notes
- Lemon Notes Unlimited Notes7 Days trial$3.991 Year









