Comparison

BookNotes vs Pencora

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

Head to head
About

BookNotes

Features
Read full description

BookNotes turns physical book pages into a digital knowledge library — powered by AI. SMART PAGE SCANNING Capture any book page with your camera or upload from your gallery. AI automatically detects and extracts all text, including your highlighted, underlined, and circled annotations. ANNOTATION DETECTION BookNotes understands your reading style. It separately identifies: • Highlighted text (any color) • Underlined passages • Circled words • All handwritten or printed text VOICE NOTES No time to type? Just speak. Record a quick audio note and BookNotes transcribes it instantly. Perfect for thoughts you have while reading. BOOK LIBRARY Organize your notes by book. Create collections, add authors, and build your personal reading archive. Every extraction is searchable and editable. VOCABULARY BUILDER Tap any word to translate it or look it up in the dictionary — in any language. Save words to your personal vocabulary list and review them later. EXPORT ANYWHERE Export your notes and word lists as Word (.docx) or Markdown (.md) files. Share with classmates, colleagues, or import into your favourite note-taking app. Perfect for: - Students taking notes from textbooks - Language learners building vocabulary from books - Researchers extracting quotes and passages - Readers who want to keep their annotations forever Try BookNotes free — your first uploads are on us.

About

Pencora

This app transforms your handwriting into searchable text, allowing for quick retrieval of notes, formulas, and even math equations. It offers a lag-free writing experience with advanced tools and supports importing from other note-taking applications. Backups are automatically managed via Google Drive.

Highlights
  • Searchable handwriting
  • Lag-free writing engine
  • Import from PDF and other apps
  • Interactive math graphing
  • On-device handwriting generation
  • Automatic Google Drive backups
Features
Read full description

Pencora is paper that thinks: a fast, private notebook for serious study that keeps up with your hand and helps you find, build, and protect what you learn. Everything is free. No subscription. No ads. No account. FIND ANYTHING YOU WROTE Your handwriting becomes searchable as you write—on your iPad, without uploading your notes. Search across every notebook, jump straight to the highlighted word, and find text inside added photos too. Pencora supports English, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese, and handles messy handwriting, close matches, and typos. WRITE WITHOUT THE LAG A custom Metal engine draws each stroke immediately with pressure, tilt, hover, and Apple Pencil Pro squeeze. Even large notebooks stay smooth. Prefer a finger? You can write with that too. MOVE IN WITHOUT STARTING OVER Export your notebooks from Goodnotes, Notability, or any other note app as PDF. Pencora detects the paper ruling, keeps pages in order, and converts handwriting stored as vector ink into editable strokes instead of locking it inside a picture. Large documents open quickly and keep converting in the background. TYPE IT. GET YOUR HANDWRITING. Write a set of sample words once—or pick a ready-made hand—then type or paste Markdown, lists, and LaTeX formulas. The on-device handwriting model places them on the page as real, erasable strokes in your style, following the ruling of the paper. Available in English and Russian. Nothing is uploaded for generation. MATH THAT STAYS LIVE Add interactive graph planes directly to a page. Plot functions, implicit curves, points, and tables; import CSV; or draw a table by hand and let Pencora read it. Ink written on the plane stays attached to its coordinates. Build exact geometry beside your proof: points, segments, lines, circles, polygons, curves, midpoints, perpendicular and angle bisectors, parallels, tangents, intersections, reflections, and triangle centers. Drag a point and every dependent construction moves with it. Measure in real millimeters and label points in your own handwriting. THE TOOLS A REAL NOTEBOOK NEEDS • Lined, grid, dotted, or PDF paper • Shape snapping for lines, circles, and polygons • Highlighter, study tape, and scribble-to-erase • A lasso that moves, scales, rotates, and changes stroke width • A zoom-write strip for small, neat writing • Calligraphy nibs and an eyedropper • Markdown text boxes and live formulas • True-vector PDF export that stays crisp at any zoom • Folders, tags, and tabs • An infinite board with a minimap for every notebook NEVER LOSE A PAGE Connect Google Drive for automatic daily backups to your own account. Pencora keeps the five newest copies and can restore your library on a new iPad. It uses Google's limited-access permission, so it sees only its own backup files—not the rest of your Drive. You can also export your entire library into one backup file whenever you want. YOUR NOTEBOOKS ON IPHONE Connect the same Google Drive on your iPhone to read the notebooks from your iPad's latest backup, with folders and names intact. You can also open any .handynotes notebook someone sends you. Editing stays on iPad; on iPhone, notebooks are read-only. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Recognition, search, and handwriting generation run on your device. Pencora has no accounts, ads, or tracking, and never sells your data. Anonymous usage statistics can be turned off in Profile, and sharing handwriting samples for research is strictly opt-in. Your notes are not the product. Built by one developer who uses handwritten notes every day. Your feedback helps decide what gets built next.

Screenshots

BookNotes4 screens
Pencora4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pencora at none against BookNotes's 3. BookNotes's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 6 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. BookNotes sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Pencora asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BookNotes ships an update fortnightly, Pencora every 6 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 9, 2026 and November 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
BookNotes versus Pencora: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBookNotesPencora
PriceFreeFree
Rating—4.9 (7 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—7 — better
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 6 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size45 MB144 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNezih TopalogluAnastasia Naumkina

In-app purchases

3 purchases

BookNotes

One-time3
  • Starter Pack$2.49
  • Explorer Pack$4.49
  • Scholar Pack$9.49
None

Pencora

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is BookNotes free?
BookNotes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Pencora free?
Pencora is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do BookNotes or Pencora have ads?
Neither BookNotes nor Pencora shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BookNotes or Pencora?
BookNotes ships an update fortnightly, and Pencora every 6 weeks. Most recently, BookNotes was updated on November 9, 2026 and Pencora on November 15, 2026.

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