Comparison

NextNote vs Pencil Notes

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

Pencil Notes

Features
Read full description

# Pencil Notes — Your Simple Apple Pencil Notebook Turn your iPad into a simple, distraction-free notebook designed for Apple Pencil. Write naturally, organize your ideas, annotate documents, and export your work — all without subscriptions or complicated setup. ## WRITE NATURALLY Pencil Notes is built around the feeling of writing on real paper. • Write with Apple Pencil • Create unlimited notebooks and pages • Choose blank, lined, dotted, or grid paper • Use a pressure-sensitive pen • Highlight important ideas • Undo and redo with ease • Zoom and pan while writing Whether you're taking notes, planning your day, journaling, brainstorming, or simply sketching, Pencil Notes keeps things simple. ## WRITE ON PDFs Import a PDF and write directly on it with Apple Pencil. Highlight text, add handwritten notes, draw, underline, circle important information, and mark up documents naturally. Perfect for: • Study materials • Lecture notes • Work documents • Forms and worksheets • Research papers • Presentations • Personal documents ## ANNOTATE IMAGES Import an image and use your Apple Pencil to write, draw, mark up, or add notes directly on it. ## EXPORT YOUR WORK When you're finished, export your handwritten pages, PDF annotations, or marked-up images and share them wherever you need. ## PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your notes stay on your iPad. No account required. Your notes stay on your iPad. No cloud storage. No ads. Just open the app and start writing. ## MADE FOR EVERYDAY USE Use Pencil Notes for: • Class and lecture notes • Meetings • To-do lists • Journaling • Planning • Brainstorming • Sketching • PDF annotation • Document markup • Personal notes ## SIMPLE BY CHOICE Pencil Notes isn't trying to replace every app on your iPad. It's a simple place to write. Open it. Pick a page. Grab your Apple Pencil. Start writing.

Screenshots

NextNote4 screens
Pencil Notes3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: NextNote at every 5 days against Pencil Notes's every 4 weeks. Pencil Notes's advantage is price ($1.99 vs $5.99) and chart position (#180 vs unranked). On ads, 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 Pencil Notes $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

NextNote ships an update every 5 days, Pencil Notes every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences Ā· 4 level
NextNote versus Pencil Notes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNextNotePencil Notes
Price$5.99$1.99 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 4 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
Best chart rank—#180 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.4
Further details — not scored
Size80 MB50 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer劲灿 陈Kliv Spahiu

In-app purchases

None

NextNote

No in-app purchases

None

Pencil Notes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is NextNote free?
NextNote costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Pencil Notes free?
Pencil Notes costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do NextNote or Pencil Notes have ads?
Neither NextNote nor Pencil Notes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, NextNote or Pencil Notes?
NextNote ships an update every 5 days, and Pencil Notes every 4 weeks. Most recently, NextNote was updated on October 30, 2026 and Pencil Notes on October 31, 2026.

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