DEVONthink To Go 4 vs Harbor Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
DEVONthink To Go 4
Manage your entire knowledge library on your iPad and iPhone. Organize, edit, and annotate documents, notes, and more. Leverage generative AI for summaries, content creation, and advanced search. Syncs privately and securely across devices.
- Document organization and management
- AI-powered summaries and content creation
- PDF annotation and editing
- On-device OCR for searchable documents
- Cross-device secure synchronization
- Custom metadata and tagging
- Shortcuts automation
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Your entire knowledge library. Always with you. Always private. DEVONthink To Go is your document repository when you're not at your Mac. Collect, organize, edit, and annotate. Use generative AI to work with your stored knowledge or create new documents. Automate with Shortcuts. Our time-tested technology keeps all your data in sync between your Mac, iPad, and iPhone, privately and securely. The professional document and information manager for iPad and iPhone. From DEVONtechnologies, driving innovation since 2002. - Students: Annotate research papers with AI-powered summaries - Teachers: Organize your materials, use AI to create handouts and tests - Researchers: Have your data with you in a robust, powerful knowledge manager - Lawyers: Keep all case files organized and encrypted Have your important documents with you at all times: - Never lose an important document again, keep everything organized - Store PDFs, notes, images, bookmarks, just about any type - File your documents in groups, even more than one group at a time - Use tags, mark documents with flags or as unread, give them a star rating - Versioning lets you return to a previous state of a document - Revision-proof databases prevent edits to documents with special requirements - Sync your data between Macs, iPads, and iPhones, securely and privately Work with your documents: - Edit texts, Markdown files, or rich text documents - Annotate and edit PDFs with common tools - Make scans, scanned PDFs, or images searchable with the built-in, on-device OCR - Add custom, searchable metadata fields to enrich your documents Use generative AI: - Work with your favorite provider and model - Chat with your documents, analyze or summarize them - Transform text or extract text from images and even handwritten notes - Create new images from your data - Find documents using natural language with the AI-powered search assistant - Let the AI make order from chaos, rename documents, add tags, or label or rate them DEVONthink To Go is well-integrated with other apps: - Link to your documents from other apps with universal links - Access all your documents also through the Files app - Clip data from almost any app with the Clip to DEVONthink extension - Use drag-and-drop, inside DEVONthink To Go or between apps - Automate repetitive tasks with Shortcuts actions DEVONthink To Go is great standalone but also works perfectly with DEVONthink for Mac and across multiple devices. Synchronize your databases securely and privately over the local network or through a cloud service of your choice. You decide what data is synced, when, and where. Strong encryption makes sure that your data belongs to you, not to your service provider or us. Privacy policy: https://www.devontechnologies.com/r/privacy End user license agreement: https://www.devontechnologies.com/r/eula
Harbor Notes
Capture, organize, and secure all your thoughts, tasks, and files in one private space. This app offers rich note-taking features, robust organization, and instant search, even within images and scanned documents. Your data is yours, with optional end-to-end encryption and no ads or data selling.
- Rich notes with checklists, tables, and highlights
- Notebooks, stacks, and tags for organization
- Task management with due dates
- Document scanning and sketching
- Voice memos and file attachments
- Instant search with OCR
- Offline-first native apps
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Harbor is your private second brain — a fast, native notes app for people who want to remember everything and own it for life. Capture notes, organize them into notebooks, tag anything, attach photos and files, scan paper documents, sketch ideas, and record voice memos. Then find any of it in seconds — Harbor's search even reads the text inside your images and scans. REMEMBER EVERYTHING • Rich notes with checklists, tables, images, links, and highlights • Notebooks and stacks that keep every part of your life organized • Tags that cut across notebooks • Tasks with due dates, right beside your notes • Scan documents with your camera; sketch with your finger or Apple Pencil • Voice memos and file attachments of every kind • Instant search across everything — including the text inside images and scans (OCR) YOURS, EVERYWHERE • Truly native apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac — no web wrapper • Offline-first: your notes live on your device and sync automatically • The full web app at app.harbor.my from any browser • A web clipper that saves articles and pages straight into your notebooks PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No ads. No selling your data. No training AI on your notes. Ever. • Optional end-to-end encryption locks down your most sensitive notes so that no one — not even us — can read them • Export everything anytime in open formats. You are never locked in. SWITCHING FROM ANOTHER NOTES APP? Import your Evernote notebooks (.enex files) with the Mac or web app — your notebooks, tags, and attachments sync straight to your iPhone and iPad. SIMPLE, HONEST PRICING Harbor is free for up to 50 notes, 3 notebooks, and 20 tags — no credit card required. When you outgrow the free plan, Harbor Unlimited removes every limit: • $9.99/month or $99/year • Unlimited notes, notebooks, tags, tasks, and files • A written price-lock promise in our terms: your price won't go up for at least 3 years Subscriptions are billed to your Apple ID and renew automatically until cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. And even if you stop paying, you can always read and export your notes — Harbor never holds your data hostage. Privacy Policy: https://harbor.my/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://harbor.my/terms/ Questions? A real person answers: help@harbor.my
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Harbor Notes at 100% against DEVONthink To Go 4's 45%. Harbor Notes also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 3 weeks) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). DEVONthink To Go 4's advantage is ratings volume (242 vs 4). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. DEVONthink To Go 4 sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Harbor Notes sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Harbor Notes holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: DEVONthink To Go 4 has 242 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 45% of DEVONthink To Go 4's written reviews are positive against 100% of Harbor Notes's.
DEVONthink To Go 4 ships an update every 3 weeks, Harbor Notes every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | DEVONthink To Go 4 | Harbor Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (242 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 44.8% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 242 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 193 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | DEVONtechnologies, LLC | Cloudmanic Labs, LLC |
Customer experience
DEVONthink To Go 4
Harbor Notes
In-app purchases
DEVONthink To Go 4
- Monthly1 Month trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly1 Month trial$19.991 Year
Harbor Notes
- Unlimited — Monthly$9.991 Month
- Unlimited — Yearly$99.001 Year
Questions
Is DEVONthink To Go 4 free?
Is Harbor Notes free?
Which has better reviews, DEVONthink To Go 4 or Harbor Notes?
Do DEVONthink To Go 4 or Harbor Notes have ads?
Which is updated more often, DEVONthink To Go 4 or Harbor Notes?
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