Comparison

Hjarni Notes vs FoldNotes

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

Head to head
About

Hjarni Notes

This app acts as a persistent memory for AI assistants, allowing you to write notes once and have them accessible across different AI models. It organizes information in plain Markdown, supports team collaboration, and lets you control AI instructions.

Highlights
  • Persistent AI memory
  • Markdown knowledge base
  • Team collaboration
  • Customizable AI instructions
  • Plain text notes
  • Versioned note history
Features
Read full description

Your AI starts from zero every conversation. Hjarni fixes that. Write a note on your phone. Ask Claude or ChatGPT about it on your laptop, and it already knows. Hjarni is a Markdown knowledge base with a built-in MCP server. Notes, folders, tags. That is the whole product. MCP is not a plugin bolted on afterwards. The app was built around it. HOW IT WORKS Save a note once. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, or any MCP client. Your AI reads your notes, follows your instructions, and writes new notes that fit your system. Stop re-explaining your stack, your customers, or your style guide at the start of every conversation. Write once. You both remember. ON YOUR IPHONE Capture a note in seconds from the New tab. Triage it later from the Inbox. Search everything you have written. Read anywhere. This is the capture and read-anywhere companion. The long editing sessions happen on the web. That is on purpose. ONE BRAIN, EVERY ASSISTANT Claude and ChatGPT each keep their own memory, and neither one shares. Hjarni sits outside both. Switch assistants, keep your context. Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Cursor, and anything else that speaks MCP. MEMORY YOU CAN ACTUALLY READ Assistant memory is a black box. Hjarni is not. Every note is plain Markdown you can open, search, and edit. Every change is versioned, so you can see what your AI wrote, diff it, and revert it. Export everything, any time, in a format that opens anywhere. SHARE A BRAIN WITH YOUR TEAM Team folders give everyone the same context. Your conventions, your decisions, your onboarding docs. Every teammate's AI reads the same thing, so nobody has to be the person who remembers. YOU OWN THE INSTRUCTIONS Set instructions per folder and per team. Tell your AI how to format notes, which tags to use, what tone to write in. Your AI works the way you work. SIMPLE ON PURPOSE We left features out on purpose. No databases. No kanban boards. No page builders. Hjarni is a place to write and organize. The constraint is the feature. WHO IT IS FOR Developers, teams, founders, researchers, writers, travelers. Anyone who has typed the same context into a chat window twice. HJARNI PRO Hjarni is free to use, with a limit on how many notes you can keep. Pro removes the limit and adds file attachments, imports, email capture, and folder collaborators. Pro is an auto renewing subscription, monthly or annual. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. It renews unless you turn off auto renew at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for the renewal within 24 hours before that. Manage the subscription and turn off auto renew in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://hjarni.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://hjarni.com/privacy

About

FoldNotes

Organize long notes by collapsing completed sections, keeping your workspace focused. This app uses plain Markdown files stored in iCloud or locally, ensuring your data is accessible across devices and applications. It offers advanced text styling, task management, and powerful search capabilities.

Highlights
  • Collapsible sections and list items
  • Plain Markdown file storage
  • Live Markdown styling with syntax highlighting
  • Task management with four states
  • Wiki-links with automatic backlinks
  • Powerful search with regular expressions
  • Customizable themes and fonts
Read full description

Some notes are short. Others grow into chapters, plans and running logs you scroll past a hundred times. FoldNotes lets you fold the finished parts away, so a long note stays as small as the part you are actually working on. Every note is a plain Markdown file. No database, no proprietary format, no export step. Your notes sit in iCloud Drive or on your device, and any other app can open them, today or in ten years. It is also a real iOS app, written in Swift. Not a web page in a wrapper. It opens instantly, works offline, handles a hardware keyboard properly, and does not sit in the background eating your battery. FOLD ANYTHING • Collapse any heading or list item and everything beneath it folds away • Hoist a section to work on it alone, with everything else out of sight • Task counts stay on the folded heading, so you can see what is left without unfolding WRITTEN FOR MARKDOWN • Live styling as you type — headings, lists, quotes, code, links • Six heading levels, and GFM tables with a real table editor • Code blocks with syntax highlighting • Wiki-links [[like this]], with previews and automatic backlinks • Nested tags TASKS WHERE YOU WROTE THEM • Four states: to do, in progress, done and cancelled • Due dates and priorities written inline, in plain text • Assign them to a project and add context and comments • Counts roll up to the section above them BUILT FOR IPAD • Library, notes and editor side by side • Hardware keyboard shortcuts throughout • An inspector with outline, tasks, references, properties and a note graph • Scan printed text straight into a note with the camera FIND ANYTHING • Search every note, including regular expressions • Saved queries and database views across your whole collection • Daily notes with a calendar COMING FROM ANOTHER APP • Import from Bear or Obsidian in a tap • Or simply point FoldNotes at the Markdown files you already have MAKE IT YOURS • Light and dark themes, including Nord, Dracula and Catppuccin • Choose your body, heading and code fonts • Paragraph focus, sentence focus and typewriter scrolling Folding is not a formatting trick. A long document asks you to hold every section in your head at once; folding lets you put the finished ones down. That is the whole idea, and everything else here is built around it. Your notes will outlive this app, and every app like it. That is rather the point.

Screenshots

Hjarni Notes4 screens
FoldNotes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: FoldNotes at free against Hjarni Notes's freemium. FoldNotes also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). 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

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 Hjarni Notes against 5.0 for FoldNotes. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hjarni Notes ships an update weekly, FoldNotes every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 30, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Hjarni Notes versus FoldNotes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHjarni NotesFoldNotes
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB21 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerevert van den bruelFoldsoft Pty Ltd

Customer experience

Hjarni Notes

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

FoldNotes

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

In-app purchases

None

Hjarni Notes

No in-app purchases

None

FoldNotes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Hjarni Notes free?
Hjarni Notes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is FoldNotes free?
FoldNotes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Hjarni Notes or FoldNotes?
Hjarni Notes and FoldNotes are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do Hjarni Notes or FoldNotes have ads?
Neither Hjarni Notes nor FoldNotes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hjarni Notes or FoldNotes?
Hjarni Notes ships an update weekly, and FoldNotes every 2 days. Most recently, Hjarni Notes was updated on September 30, 2026 and FoldNotes on September 25, 2026.

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