Note Town vs Smolpad
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Note Town
A collaborative tool for families and friends to plan and share together. Organize tasks, track habits, journal, and share files in a central, accessible location for everyone.
- Collaborative note-taking
- Task management
- Habit tracking
- Journaling
- File sharing
- Family access
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Note Town is a collaborative note taking and planning tools where families and friends plan and share together. Organize your life with beautiful note — add tasks, track habits, keep a journal, and share files, all in one place that everyone in the family can access.
Smolpad
A minimalist Markdown editor that stores your notes as plain .md files, accessible across all your devices via iCloud. Offers beautiful writing tools and robust file management without bloat.
- Plain .md file storage
- iCloud sync
- Markdown syntax highlighting
- Task list checkboxes
- Folder organization and search
- File version history
- Menu bar app on Mac
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Smolpad is a smol Markdown editor with respect for your files. Every note is a plain .md file you can open with any app, on any device, forever. Your files are your own. No database. No lock-in. No bloat. Just a tiny, fast home for your notes on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. WRITE IN MARKDOWN, BEAUTIFULLY • Syntax dims as you type, or hides away entirely with one tap • Task lists become real checkboxes. Checkboxes that check. • Headings, bold, italic, code, quotes, and tables, styled as you write • A formatting bar for common touches, plus full keyboard shortcuts • Pictures too: drag or paste one in, resize it by its corner, and it lives as a plain file beside the note YOUR FILES, ANYWHERE • Notes sync through your own iCloud Drive, included free • Open your notes folder in Finder or Files any time • Organize with folders, pins, and instant search • A Trash for deleted notes, and a history of every note's earlier versions • Find notes in Spotlight, and open them with Siri or Shortcuts • Your notes never leave your devices except to your own cloud SMOL ON PURPOSE • On the Mac, Smolpad lives in your menu bar, one hotkey away • Tear off a note into its own window when you want to stay a while • On iPhone and iPad, it opens fast and stays out of your way • Eight hand-picked fonts and a clean, quiet interface MAKE IT YOURS WITH SMOLPAD PRO • Unlimited notes (the free tier includes ten) • Dropbox, pCloud, or Google Drive sync, in a folder that belongs to you • Notepads: open any folder of Markdown files as its own notepad, an Obsidian vault or a Bear export among them • Export to PDF, HTML, or rich text, and print • Widgets on the Mac, iPhone and iPad, Lock Screen widgets on iPhone, and Smolpad on Apple Watch • Twenty-nine editor themes, from Tokyo Night to Catppuccin • Seventeen app icons and the full menu bar icon set Smolpad Pro is available as a monthly or yearly subscription, or a one-time lifetime purchase. The free tier is a real notes app, not a trial. Made by a smol team that believes plain text outlives everything. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://smolpad.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Note Town at none against Smolpad's 3. Smolpad's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 3 weeks). On price, rating, ratings volume 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. Smolpad sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Note Town asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Note Town against 5.0 for Smolpad. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.
Note Town ships an update every 3 weeks, Smolpad every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Note Town | Smolpad |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 35 MB | 76 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Stanislav Panferov | BaconWorks, LLC |
Customer experience
Note Town
Smolpad
In-app purchases
Note Town
No in-app purchases
Smolpad
- Smolpad Pro$1.491 Month
- Smolpad Pro7 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Smolpad Pro Lifetime$29.99









