Comparison

NoteVela vs Grug Notes

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

Head to head
About

NoteVela

Features
Read full description

NoteVela turns your voice into organized, searchable notes using advanced AI transcription and summarization. FEATURES: • Instantly record voice notes • Accurate AI-powered transcription • One-tap AI summaries for every note • Search notes by title with a built-in search bar • Organize, view, and delete notes easily • Offline voice recording • Modern, privacy-focused design • Supports 10 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish Ideal for meetings, lectures, interviews, and more. All audio is processed securely in the cloud and never shared. Your privacy is protected. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Grug Notes

This app allows users to capture, edit, and organize notes using voice commands. It offers real-time voice interaction for finding, modifying, and asking questions about your notes, as well as a voice-powered calculator and meeting transcription. It's designed for hands-free use, syncing across devices.

Highlights
  • Live voice mode for real-time interaction
  • Hands-free note editing and retrieval
  • Voice-powered calculator
  • Meeting recording and transcription
  • AI-powered summarization
  • Personal wiki creation
  • Cloud syncing across devices
Features
Read full description

A daily notes app for people who work on their feet. Its live voice mode doesn't just take dictation: it finds your notes, edits them, answers questions, and even does the math, all while you talk. Get what's in your head onto the page, minus the clutter. LIVE MODE: TALK, AND IT ACTS This isn't dictation. Live mode understands what you mean and does it, in real time: • Find anything: ask "what did I note about the trip budget?" and the note surfaces. • Edit hands-free: add to, rewrite, or clean up a note by talking. • Ask anything: get answers from your notes, or quick answers to anything else. • Do the math: say "what's 15% of 2,400?" and get the answer on the spot. CAPTURE BY VOICE Just want it written down? Tap record and talk — your words become clean, transcribed notes instantly. MEETINGS, HANDLED Record and transcribe entire meetings, then get clean, searchable notes. Pair with your own notes and use AI to summarize. YOUR PERSONAL WIKI Mention a person, company, or date and Grug Notes tags it for you, then builds a page that pulls together every note where it comes up. A second brain, minus the busywork. PLAN IT WITH GRUG CHAT Organize each day with prompts you choose — Goals, Tasks, Training, whatever fits. Then tell Grug Chat what you're working toward and it drafts the plan straight into your days: training for a race, next week's jobs, a simple travel itinerary. You review everything it proposes before it lands. CHATGPT, GEMINI, AND CLAUDE. ONE APP. Grug Chat runs on the models you already know — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, and more — with one subscription. Pick a favorite, or ask several at once and compare their answers. WORKOUTS FROM APPLE HEALTH Plan the training, then let the results log themselves. Connect Apple Health and every workout becomes a note on the day it happened — distance, duration, pace, heart rate, and calories, right next to what you planned. Read-only, opt-in, and only from the workout apps you approve. PICK UP ANYWHERE Notes sync automatically between your phone and the web. Start anywhere, pick up right where you left off. BUILT BY A CANOE SHOP We build canoes for a living, on our feet all day with our hands full. Every notes app we tried was made for someone sitting at a desk. So we built the one we actually needed: talk to it, and it works. No keyboard required. Download and start talking. — Terms of Use: https://grugnotes.com/tos/ Privacy Policy: https://grugnotes.com/privacy/

Screenshots

NoteVela4 screens
Grug Notes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Grug Notes at every 3 days against NoteVela's monthly. NoteVela's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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

Both are free to download. NoteVela sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Grug Notes sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

NoteVela ships an update monthly, Grug Notes every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 12, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
NoteVela versus Grug Notes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNoteVelaGrug Notes
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (23 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—23 — better
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size30 MB32 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperGayanga HerathKamanu Composites, LLC

In-app purchases

2 purchases

NoteVela

Subscriptions2
  • Pro Monthly$9.991 Month
  • Pro Yearly$109.991 Year
2 purchases

Grug Notes

Subscriptions2
  • Grug Core$12.991 Month
  • Grug Plus$17.991 Month

Questions

Is NoteVela free?
NoteVela is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Grug Notes free?
Grug Notes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do NoteVela or Grug Notes have ads?
Neither NoteVela nor Grug Notes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, NoteVela or Grug Notes?
NoteVela ships an update monthly, and Grug Notes every 3 days. Most recently, NoteVela was updated on November 12, 2026 and Grug Notes on November 5, 2026.

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