Comparison

Sebastian Assistant vs ZenNotes

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

Head to head
About

Sebastian Assistant

This app offers a streamlined way to manage reminders, notes, and actions through voice or text input. It features a smart dashboard for daily overviews, customizable widgets, and a privacy-first approach with on-device data storage.

Highlights
  • Voice + Text Actions
  • Smart Dashboard
  • Sticky Notes
  • Widgets & Standby
  • Customizable Sections
  • Privacy-First
Features
Read full description

Sebastian — Daily Assistant Sebastian pulls your calendar, reminders, notes, alarms and timers into one place, and keeps them tied to the people they are actually about. THREADS Link a calendar, a reminder list, a note, an alarm or a timer to a person, and Sebastian builds them a thread — one timeline of every appointment, reminder, note and comment involving them. Filter it to one kind of entry, then share it as text or a formatted PDF. It is the fastest way to answer "what has been going on with Mum's care?" without digging through four apps. YOUR DAY • Today: events, due reminders and what needs attention, in a dashboard you arrange yourself. • Reminders: group by list, due date, priority or status. Save Quick Views, act on many at once, and timebox a task straight onto your calendar. • Calendar: day, week and month, with conflict spotting and travel time. • Notes: Markdown, images and attachments, with their own widgets. TIMERS, ALARMS AND FASTING Multiple named timers, full alarm scheduling, and fasting timers that keep running past their target so you can see how long you actually fasted. WIDGETS AND SHORTCUTS Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy widgets, launcher cards, Live Activities, Control Center controls, Spotlight search and Siri Shortcuts. DRIVE MODE A large-type, glanceable view of what is next when you are on the road. PRIVACY Your calendar, reminders and contacts stay on your device and in Apple's own apps. Sebastian asks for what it needs and nothing more. There is no account and no sign-up. FREE AND PLUS Free shows every calendar and reminder list you have — nothing is hidden. You can add to and edit any three of each, and tick off or delete a reminder wherever it lives. It includes alarms, timers, severe weather alerts, and the small and medium widgets. Sebastian Plus is a single one-time purchase — no subscription, nothing to renew — and it lifts every limit: editing in all your calendars and lists, unlimited notes, sync across your devices, full thread history and export, hourly and 10-day forecasts, focus timers, shared tags and the large launcher widgets. It is shareable with your Family Sharing group. New installs get 30 days of everything to try first. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

ZenNotes

This app allows you to create and manage notes using plain Markdown files. It offers flexible storage options, rich text formatting with live previews, and powerful organization tools like task management and note linking. Designed for both phone and tablet, it prioritizes user privacy with no accounts or tracking.

Highlights
  • Plain Markdown file storage
  • Live rich text previews
  • Wikilinks and #tags
  • Vault-wide task management
  • Table databases as CSV
  • Excalidraw drawing support
  • Share extension for quick capture
Features
Read full description

ZenNotes is a local-first markdown notes app for writing, organizing, and connecting ideas without giving up ownership of your files. YOUR NOTES, YOUR FILES Every note is a plain .md file in a vault you control. Start with storage on your iPhone or iPad, use iCloud Drive, or open a folder through the system document picker. Local and iCloud vaults work without an account. ZENNOTES CLOUD Connect an optional ZenNotes Cloud plan to: • Sync a vault across ZenNotes desktop and mobile • Sync notes and attachments • Create manual and automatic daily backups • Restore a full vault or a single note from a backup • Publish notes to the web and manage their public links Cloud never replaces the free local-first workflow. Use it only when you want hosted sync, backup, or publishing. WRITE IN MARKDOWN Use a focused editor with headings, lists, tasks, tables, code, links, wikilinks, tags, callouts, footnotes, and frontmatter. A mobile formatting bar keeps common actions close to the keyboard, and a pinch resizes the text to your eyes. RICH, OFFLINE PREVIEW Render KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, JSXGraph, function plots, tables, callouts, and more directly on your device. ORGANIZE YOUR WAY Pin your go-to notes and folders to the top, swipe rows to act on them, create and rename nested folders, browse tags, search the full vault, manage tasks, create periodic notes, and work with table databases stored as CSV. CAPTURE QUICKLY Create a quick note from the app or send text and links to ZenNotes from the iOS share sheet. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Start a note, open a recent one, or check today's tasks without opening the app. New Note also lives on the Lock Screen, and the widgets wear your theme. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT ZenNotes has no advertising or tracking. Local and iCloud notes stay in the storage you choose. When you enable ZenNotes Cloud, the account identity, connected-device information, and vault content needed for the Cloud features you use are sent to the ZenNotes service. Payment details are handled by Stripe. ZenNotes is open source. Your vault remains useful outside the app because it is made of ordinary files.

Screenshots

Sebastian Assistant4 screens
ZenNotes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: ZenNotes at free against Sebastian Assistant's paid. ZenNotes also leads on ratings volume (11 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, update cadence 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Sebastian Assistant against 4.9 for ZenNotes. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: ZenNotes has 11 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Sebastian Assistant versus ZenNotes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSebastian AssistantZenNotes
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better4.9 (11 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings111 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 daysEvery 2 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size23 MB81 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMichael SurrattLumary Labs LLC

Customer experience

Sebastian Assistant

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

ZenNotes

All ratings11 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Sebastian Assistant

No in-app purchases

None

ZenNotes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Sebastian Assistant free?
Sebastian Assistant is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ZenNotes free?
ZenNotes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Sebastian Assistant or ZenNotes?
Sebastian Assistant is rated higher. Sebastian Assistant averages 5.0 out of 5 from 1 ratings, while ZenNotes averages 4.9 from 11 ratings.
Do Sebastian Assistant or ZenNotes have ads?
Neither Sebastian Assistant nor ZenNotes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Sebastian Assistant or ZenNotes?
Sebastian Assistant ships an update every 2 days, and ZenNotes every 2 days. Most recently, Sebastian Assistant was updated on October 9, 2026 and ZenNotes on October 10, 2026.

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