Hand vs Better Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hand
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【Hand-drawn】Hand-drawn is a high-performance, local-first digital drawing and gallery application built for creative work on your device. **Professional Drawing Tools** Access a full set of brushes, pens, and erasers designed for precise control. Adjust stroke weight, opacity, and color to suit your workflow. **Layer Management** Organize your artwork with a flexible layer system. Create, reorder, merge, and adjust layer visibility and opacity for detailed compositions. **Built-in Gallery** Browse and manage all your creations in one place. The gallery keeps your drawings organized and easy to access without relying on external apps. **Local-First Architecture** All data is stored on your device. The app operates without requiring a network connection, ensuring your work remains accessible at all times. **Privacy by Design** No account registration is required, and no personal data is collected or transmitted. Your drawings and creative process stay entirely on your device. Hand-drawn provides a focused, distraction-free environment for digital drawing with the tools and performance needed for both casual sketches and detailed illustrations. Premium Account Pricing and Terms $ 4.99/week* $ 39.99/year* *Prices shown are in U.S. dollars; actual charges may be converted to your local currency. Payment will be charged to your iTunes account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period, and the renewal cost will be provided. Subscriptions can be managed by the user. Turning off auto-renewal may be done by going to your account settings after purchase. Cancellation of the current subscription is not allowed during the active subscription period. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription to that publication. EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://suhanhui.xyz/shouhua/privacy.html
Better Notes
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Better Notes is a focused idea studio for handwriting, sketching, typed notes and PDF annotation. It combines the freedom of paper with the organisation and editing tools of a modern native app. WRITE NATURALLY Capture smooth, pressure-aware ink with fountain pen, ballpoint, fineliner, pencil, calligraphy, brush, reed pen, marker and highlighter tools. Adjust colour, width and stabilisation, then erase by stroke or precisely through ink. BUILD PAGES YOUR WAY Choose blank, ruled, dotted, grid, Cornell and margin paper. Mix A4, A5, Letter and Legal pages in portrait or landscape—even inside the same notebook. Add, duplicate, bookmark and reorder your thinking page by page. MORE THAN HANDWRITING Add editable styled text, shapes and images. Move, rotate, recolour and organise content across independent layers with visibility, locking and opacity controls. ANNOTATE PDFs Import a PDF, write directly over it and keep its links intact. Export finished work as PDF, PNG, JPEG, Markdown or plain text whenever you need to share or continue elsewhere. RECORD THE MOMENT Attach audio to a page during a lecture, meeting or brainstorming session. Rename recordings and jump back to the page where each recording began. FIND AND ORGANISE IDEAS Create spaces and nested folders, add tags, mark favourites, revisit recent notes and recover items from Trash. Search notebook titles, tags and typed page content from one fast local library. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Better Notes works locally and offline. Your notebooks and recordings stay on your device unless you choose to export or share them. There is no required account, advertising or behavioural tracking. BUILT FOR APPLE DEVICES Enjoy a responsive light interface designed for touch, Apple Pencil, pointer and keyboard. Better Notes supports keyboard shortcuts, accessibility labels and Reduce Motion. Make space for your next thought—and keep every stroke editable.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Better Notes at none against Hand's 2. Better Notes also leads on device support (3 vs 1). Hand's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). On price and ads 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. Hand sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Better Notes asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Hand | Better Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | HONG KONG GANGSHENG TRADING CO. LIMITED | Luke Mclaughlin |
In-app purchases
Hand
- Weekly Prime3 Days trial$4.997 Days
- Yearly Prime$39.991 Year
Better Notes
No in-app purchases









