JotScreen vs NoteSam
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
JotScreen
Transform your screen into a dynamic wall of colorful sticky notes for jotting down thoughts, sketching ideas, or tracking tasks. Organize notes with boards, pin important items, and enjoy instant search. Built for privacy with all data stored locally.
- Digital sticky notes
- Freehand drawing with Apple Pencil
- Checklist task tracking
- Home Screen widgets
- Markdown support for text notes
- Organize notes into boards
- Privacy-focused, local storage
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JotScreen turns your screen into a wall of colorful sticky notes. Jot down thoughts, sketch ideas with Apple Pencil, or track tasks with checklists all in a beautiful, tactile interface that feels like real paper. Your ideas, beautifully organized Create notes in 12 vibrant colors and organize them into boards. Pin your most important stickies to the top, mark favorites, and find anything instantly with Spotlight search. Three ways to capture - Plain text with markdown support - Freehand drawings with Apple Pencil or finger - Checklists with progress tracking Home Screen widgets Pin a sticky to your Home Screen, see recent notes at a glance, or add new notes with a single tap — without even opening the app. Built for privacy Everything stays on your device. No accounts, no cloud, no tracking. Your notes are yours alone. Premium unlocks everything The free tier gives you 10 notes, 4 colors, and 1 board. Upgrade to Premium for unlimited notes, all 12 colors, drawings, checklists, unlimited boards, and premium widgets. Terms of Use: https://jotscreen.sabio.studio/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://jotscreen.sabio.studio/privacy.html
NoteSam
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NoteSam — Handwritten Notes for iPad Built by a mathematician who needed a handwriting notebook that actually kept up with the Apple Pencil. Couldn't find one. Wrote it. Private by design. Your notes live on your device. Sync goes only where you point it — iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, S3, SFTP. Your note content is never shared or used for ads. The free version offers optional rewarded ads to unlock premium items; Pro has no ads. WRITING • Native PencilKit engine tuned for low-latency Apple Pencil • Vector strokes — infinite zoom, no pixelation • Pressure + tilt sensitivity • Palm rejection that just works READING & ANNOTATION • PDF import — annotate textbooks, contracts, lecture notes • EPUB reader with text-anchored highlights that survive font-size changes • Voice memos attached to the page ORGANIZATION • Unlimited folders and notebooks • Template marketplace — grid, dot, music, planner, more • OCR search across handwritten notes PRIVACY End-to-end encryption (AES-256-GCM + Argon2id). Your cloud provider sees ciphertext only. Analytics records a few in-app events such as sign-up and purchase, and our ad partners measure ad performance — never the content of your notes. Your handwriting, your PDFs, your voice memos — those never leave your device unless you sync them yourself. OFFLINE-FIRST Everything works without a network connection. Sync is additive. Free tier: unlimited notebooks, PDF + EPUB import, all core drawing tools. Pro unlocks the template marketplace and multi-provider sync. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Custom Terms: https://notesam.app/terms Privacy Policy: https://notesam.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: JotScreen at none against NoteSam's shown. On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and device support 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. JotScreen sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and NoteSam sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
JotScreen ships an update every 6 weeks, NoteSam every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | JotScreen | NoteSam |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | SABIO LLC | Cryptosam LLC |
In-app purchases
JotScreen
- JotScreen Premium (Monthly)$2.991 Month
- JotScreen Premium (Yearly)$19.991 Year
- JotScreen Premium Purchase$39.99
NoteSam
- NoteSam Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
- NoteSam Pro Yearly7 Days trial$19.991 Year









