Comparison

NextNote vs VimNotes

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

Head to head
About

NextNote

Features
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Capture the thought now. Keep shaping it later. NextNote brings quick capture, rich-text editing, voice input, organization, and AI writing tools into one continuous note-taking workflow. Use it for passing ideas, meeting notes, study material, checklists, journals, project plans, or long-form drafts that need room to grow. CAPTURE FROM HOME Open NextNote and start typing without choosing a complicated format first. When typing is not convenient, capture the moment with voice, photos, or video. A quick capture is not a disconnected message or disposable draft. Once saved, it becomes a document you can keep editing, search later, organize, reuse, and share. Move from one sentence to a complete piece of writing without starting over in another tool. NextNote works well for: • Quick notes, memos, and everyday ideas • Meeting notes and work documentation • Class notes, research material, and study guides • Journals, reading notes, and writing drafts • To-do lists, checklists, and project planning • Voice thoughts, photo references, and video clips A FLEXIBLE EDITOR FOR REAL WRITING Create a simple note or develop a longer document in the same editor. Structure your work with headings, paragraphs, rich-text formatting, numbered and bulleted lists, checklists, quotes, and links. Add images, audio, video, drawings, and other content blocks when words alone are not enough. Start rough and refine over time. Save useful structures as templates for recurring meeting notes, weekly plans, study reviews, journals, or content production. Your capture and writing tools stay together, so organizing an idea does not require moving it across several apps. VOICE AND MULTIMEDIA NOTES Use voice when you need to record an idea faster than you can type, then continue working with the text. Keep images, recordings, videos, and drawings beside the written context in one document. This makes it easier to preserve source material, visual references, and the process behind your work. You can also send text, links, images, or files to NextNote from the system share sheet, then place the imported material in a new or existing document. AI WRITING HELP, ONE SWIPE AWAY AI tools live inside the writing flow instead of in a separate chat. Select text and swipe left to use focused actions in the current document: • Polish wording and improve clarity • Expand a short thought into a fuller passage • Highlight keywords and important points • Find and add a relevant visual Each action starts from text you deliberately select, so you can keep your intent and decide what to change. There is no need to copy a passage into another app or interrupt your writing session. SEARCH, ARCHIVE, AND REUSE Search document titles and body text to find an earlier note quickly. Move work you do not need right now into archive folders to keep Home focused. Deleted documents go to Trash first and can be recovered during the retention period. Turn structures you use repeatedly into templates. As your collection grows, search, folders, archives, Trash, and templates give you practical ways to manage personal notes, work records, study material, and creative projects. LOCAL NOTES AND ICLOUD Keep using local notes and core editing tools while offline. Online services are used only when a related feature needs them. On supported Apple devices, you can use iCloud according to your settings to store and sync content, then continue writing across iPhone, iPad, and compatible devices. SHARE, EXPORT, AND PUBLISH When your work is ready to leave the notebook, share it from the document. Send material to other apps, or deliberately publish a document as a web page. You can also prepare adapted versions for different content platforms when that fits your workflow. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

VimNotes

Features
Read full description

VimNotes brings real modal editing to your pocket. If you live in vim on the desktop, you finally have a notes app that thinks the way your fingers do. Tap `i` to insert. Esc to go back to NORMAL. Compose with the motions and operators you already know — no relearning, no compromise. WHY VIMNOTES • Real modal editing — NORMAL, INSERT, VISUAL, and COMMAND modes, not a toolbar wearing a vim costume. • Motions you know — h j k l, w b e, 0 $, gg G, plus counts (3w, 5j, d2w). • Operators that compose — d, y, c with any motion. dd, yy, cc shortcuts. Visual-mode operations. • Undo and redo — deep history (up to 100 steps) so experiments are always reversible. • Registers — yank and paste with the unnamed register. • Ex commands — :w, :q, :wq and friends from a familiar command line. • Built for thumbs — a custom on-screen key row keeps Esc, :, and motions one tap away. PRIVACY-FIRST BY DESIGN • 100% offline. No accounts. No sign-up. No cloud. • No analytics. No tracking. No third-party SDKs phoning home. • Your notes live in a local SQLite database on your device and nowhere else. • No network permission requested — the app physically cannot exfiltrate your data. BUILT FOR WRITERS WHO CODE VimNotes is the daily driver for engineers, technical writers, students, and anyone who already touch-types in a modal editor. Capture meeting notes, draft commit messages, sketch designs in markdown, keep a journal — without ever leaving the keystroke vocabulary you already mastered. FEATURES • Modal editor: NORMAL / INSERT / VISUAL / COMMAND • Motions: h j k l w b e 0 $ gg G with count prefixes • Operators: d y c (delete, yank, change) over motions and visual selections • Line shortcuts: dd, yy, cc, D, C • Undo / redo with a 100-step history • Ex commands: :w :q :wq :q! • Local SQLite storage — fast, durable, private • Light and dark interface • Dynamic Type and VoiceOver support • iPhone, all screen sizes NO STRINGS VimNotes is free of ads, trackers, telemetry, and subscriptions. One app, one purpose: let you write the way you already think. If you have feedback or run into trouble, visit https://moruk.ai/support — we read every message.

Screenshots

NextNote4 screens
VimNotes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: NextNote at none against VimNotes's shown. NextNote also leads on price ($5.99 vs $9.99). On update cadence, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

NextNote costs $5.99 and VimNotes $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

NextNote ships an update every 4 days, VimNotes every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences Ā· 4 level
NextNote versus VimNotes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNextNoteVimNotes
Price$5.99 — better$9.99
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size80 MB34 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer劲灿 陈Moruk LLC

In-app purchases

None

NextNote

No in-app purchases

None

VimNotes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is NextNote free?
NextNote costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is VimNotes free?
VimNotes costs $9.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do NextNote or VimNotes have ads?
VimNotes shows ads; NextNote does not.
Which is updated more often, NextNote or VimNotes?
NextNote ships an update every 4 days, and VimNotes every 3 days. Most recently, NextNote was updated on September 23, 2026 and VimNotes on September 19, 2026.

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