Comparison

Lectra Notes vs SymPy Editor

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

Head to head
About

Lectra Notes

This app provides a private workspace for reading, annotating, and organizing PDF documents. It helps users understand dense texts faster with on-device intelligence for summaries and suggested tags. Designed for a calmer document workflow, it ensures your files remain private.

Highlights
  • Read and mark up PDFs
  • Highlight key passages and add notes
  • Organize documents with folders and tags
  • Generate summaries and suggested tags
  • Private by design with on-device intelligence
  • Backup and sync library
Features
Read full description

Lectra is a professional workspace for the documents you think on. RECORD THE LECTURE, NOT JUST THE NOTES Start recording from a control that floats above the whole app, then keep writing. Tap a handwritten stroke to hear what was being said as the pen moved. Drag the playhead and watch the page fill back in, stroke by stroke. Transcription runs on device, and an hour of lecture compacts to about 15 MB. BUILT FOR STUDENTS AND ANYONE WHO READS CLOSELY Lecture slides, problem sets, papers, and textbooks. Annotate your readings, write notes beside them by hand, scan whatever you got on paper, and keep the whole semester in one library that works without a signal. READ AND MARK UP Open any PDF and work it over with Apple Pencil, pressure-responsive pen, highlighter, and eraser in a dark, distraction-free editor that keeps your ink sharp at any zoom. Select the document's own text with a finger. Apple Pencil Pro squeeze switches tools. ASK YOUR DOCUMENTS Ask a question about what you're reading and get an answer that cites the page it came from, computed by Apple's on-device model. Summarize documents and get to the point faster. Your documents are processed privately, on your iPad. NOTEBOOKS AND WHITEBOARDS Start from blank paper when the thinking hasn't found a document yet. Notebooks, paper styles, and room to sketch, then export your pages as PDFs. SCAN ANYTHING Bring paper into the record. Scan documents with the camera and mark them up like any other PDF. WHEN READING TURNS INTO WORK Run Python where you're already working, notebooks with charts, a real shell, Git, and a code editor, all on the iPad and all offline. The document and the work on it stay in the same place. A LIBRARY THAT KEEPS UP Everything in one place, available offline, and backed up when you sign in. Your documents are yours: export them anytime, in formats that open anywhere. YOUR MAC, TOO Lectra for Mac is a free download at canvascope.org/mac, the whole app on your desktop, plus your Mac on your iPad as a remote desktop, documents sent straight from iPad to Mac, and a shared clipboard. Now in Spanish and French. Lectra is free to use.

About

SymPy Editor

Features
Read full description

Edit mathematics the way you read it. SymPy editor draws your expression as a real formula, and every piece of it responds to touch: tap a term to select it, type over it, pull it apart, or apply any function from SymPy, the Python computer algebra system that powers it all. The whole CAS runs on your phone. No account, no ads, no tracking, no network: CPython and SymPy are packaged inside the app, everything you type stays on your device, and it all works in airplane mode. EDIT FORMULAS, NOT CODE • Tap any sub-expression (a term, an exponent, a matrix entry) and edit it in place • Type over a selection, or place a caret between terms and insert • Tap an operator to change it: turn + into a product, make an equation, or delete it • Unwrap (cos θ → θ), isolate, delete, copy and paste sub-expressions • The SymPy source line under the formula follows it, and the formula follows the line: edit whichever you prefer ALL OF SYMPY, ONE TAP AWAY • Transform menu: simplify, expand, factor, partial fractions, trig rewriting and more • A menu per type: matrices offer determinant, inverse and transpose; integrals, sums, derivatives and limits offer evaluation; equations swap sides or collect everything on the left • A search box over every SymPy function, asking for the parameters each one needs • An "unevaluated" switch builds Integral(f, x) or Determinant(M) symbolically instead of computing it • A Symbols panel for assumptions (positive, real, integer…) and matrix symbols with their shapes EVERY STEP IS REMEMBERED • The history shows each step and what changed: in red what went, in green what came • Play it as a slideshow, at the speed you choose • Save it as a self-contained web page that works offline, or as a Python script that rebuilds every step with SymPy • Keep several sessions, each with its own history, all on your device FOR STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND SCIENTISTS Complete the square in front of a class, evaluate limits and integrals, manipulate matrices and N-dimensional arrays, and export the derivation when it is done. FREE AND OPEN SOURCE BSD 3-Clause, no strings attached. Worked derivations, the source code and a browser version are at https://upabjojr.github.io/sympy-editor/ — and the same editor runs in Jupyter notebooks (pip install sympy-editor).

Screenshots

Lectra Notes4 screens
SymPy Editor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: SymPy Editor at 15.1 against Lectra Notes's 18.0. On price, update cadence, 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lectra Notes ships an update weekly, SymPy Editor every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Lectra Notes versus SymPy Editor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLectra NotesSymPy Editor
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (7 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings7 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size52 MB148 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNoel SasonFrancesco Bonazzi

In-app purchases

None

Lectra Notes

No in-app purchases

None

SymPy Editor

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Lectra Notes free?
Lectra Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is SymPy Editor free?
SymPy Editor is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Lectra Notes or SymPy Editor have ads?
Neither Lectra Notes nor SymPy Editor shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lectra Notes or SymPy Editor?
Lectra Notes ships an update weekly, and SymPy Editor every 6 days. Most recently, Lectra Notes was updated on October 10, 2026 and SymPy Editor on October 8, 2026.

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