Comparison

openote vs smalltype

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

Head to head
About

openote

Features
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openote โ€” Markdown notes with free sync. No account. No subscription. Other note apps charge a yearly fee just to sync your own devices. openote syncs iPhone, iPad and Mac through your iCloud Drive โ€” free, with no account to create. Your notes stay plain .md files. Open them in the Files app or any Markdown editor, and take them anywhere. No proprietary format, no lock-in. --- WHY OPENOTE Free iCloud sync Notes sync through iCloud Drive on your own Apple account. No sign-up, no subscription. Plain Markdown files Every note is a standard .md file. Front matter, checklists and [[wiki links]] are kept exactly as you wrote them. Safe across devices If a note changes on another device while you're editing, openote keeps both versions instead of silently overwriting one. Your last words are saved even if you switch apps or quit right away. Mermaid diagrams Flowcharts, sequence diagrams and more render live from Markdown. Start from a template, pinch to zoom, tap to edit the code. Rendering works offline. On-device AI On devices with Apple Intelligence, summarize a note, get tag suggestions, or turn a sentence into a diagram. It runs entirely on your device โ€” nothing is sent to a server. --- FEATURES Editor - Rich Markdown editing, with a source mode when you want the raw text - Checklists, tables and code blocks - Auto-save - Word and character count Organize - Folders and #tags with autocomplete - [[Wiki links]] between notes - Full-text search in English, Korean and Japanese Sync & files - iPhone, iPad and Mac via iCloud Drive - Browse your notes in the Files app - Export a note as PDF Shortcuts & Siri - Create, open and search notes from Shortcuts and Siri - Notes appear in Spotlight search --- PRIVACY - No account, no email - No tracking - Your notes stay in your iCloud and on your devices - AI runs on your device Everything is free. openote has no in-app purchases. openote โ€” Your notes, your files.

About

smalltype

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Short notes, many times a day, saved as plain .md files in real folders. Open the same folder on your Mac in VS Code, Vim, or any editor. Calm, minimal, and ready for iPhone Duo. smalltype is for your notes. The small ones, the quick ones, the big ones, the unpolished ones. It's a fast, quiet place to type. ## Start No tutorial, no setup screen. Tap New Note and start typing. Leave one empty and it quietly disappears, so you never end up with a pile of blank untitled notes. That's the whole app. ## Yours Every note is a real .md file, sitting right there in the Files app. You can open it, copy it, or back it up yourself, anytime. Delete one and it still goes to Recently Deleted, same as any other file: nothing's gone for good. ## Sync or Don't Keep notes in iCloud Drive to have them on every device. Or keep them On My iPhone, fully local, never leaving your device. Either way, you can switch anytime. ## Visible Markdown Markdown markers stay gently visible as you type. What you see is exactly what's in the file. A bar above the keyboard types the markers for you, with undo and redo a tap away. ## Organize Folders, search, and quick note-making, all from one screen. Nothing to set up first. Put "daily" in a folder's name and new notes inside it get today's date as their name. ## No Catch No ads. No subscription. No tracking. No account, ever. Markdown notes. Yours to keep.

Screenshots

openote4 screens
smalltype4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: smalltype at every 4 days against openote's every 5 weeks. openote's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

openote ships an update every 5 weeks, smalltype every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on September 30, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
openote versus smalltype: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameteropenotesmalltype
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 5 weeksEvery 4 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.0 โ€” better26.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size8 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperWooyoung KimHerman Haidin

In-app purchases

None

openote

No in-app purchases

None

smalltype

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is openote free?
openote is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is smalltype free?
smalltype is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do openote or smalltype have ads?
Neither openote nor smalltype shows ads.
Which is updated more often, openote or smalltype?
openote ships an update every 5 weeks, and smalltype every 4 days. Most recently, openote was updated on September 30, 2026 and smalltype on September 22, 2026.

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