Notely vs Better Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Notely
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Notely is a simple, clean, and powerful notes app for capturing your thoughts, organizing your day, and keeping important ideas close. Write quick notes, build checklists, record voice notes, set reminders, organize everything into folders, and protect private notes with PIN or Face ID. Whether you are planning your work, saving personal ideas, tracking tasks, or keeping daily notes, Notely gives you one calm place to keep everything together. CAPTURE IDEAS FAST Notely is designed for the moments when you need to save something quickly. Open the app, create a note, and get your idea down before it disappears. Create: • Text notes • Checklists • Voice notes • Reminders • Folders • Private notes Use Notely for daily thoughts, work notes, study notes, shopping lists, travel plans, personal reminders, project ideas, finance notes, and anything else you want to remember. TEXT NOTES THAT STAY ORGANIZED Write clean, focused notes with titles, folders, tags, pinned notes, and attachments. Keep short memos or longer notes in one place, then find them later with search. You can organize notes by folder, add tags for context, pin important notes, and attach images or audio when text is not enough. CHECKLISTS FOR TASKS AND PLANS Turn your tasks into simple checklists. Use them for errands, routines, study plans, packing lists, project steps, or daily goals. Checklists help you track progress at a glance and keep your next steps clear. VOICE NOTES FOR QUICK CAPTURE Sometimes speaking is faster than typing. Record voice notes when you are walking, thinking, planning, or capturing an idea on the go. Voice notes are great for: • Quick thoughts • Personal memos • Meeting takeaways • Study reminders • Creative ideas • Anything you do not want to type REMINDERS THAT HELP YOU FOLLOW THROUGH Create reminders for important tasks and upcoming plans. Add a title, details, date, time, priority, color, folder, and repeat rules. Use reminders for deadlines, habits, errands, bills, calls, appointments, and personal routines. FOLDERS FOR EVERY PART OF LIFE Keep your notes grouped by topic. Notely includes useful folders like Work, Study, Personal, Travel, Finance, and Ideas, and you can create your own folders too. Use folders to separate your work notes from personal thoughts, school notes, plans, and private information. PRIVATE NOTES WITH PIN AND FACE ID Some notes need extra protection. Notely lets you create private notes and locked folders so sensitive information stays separate from your regular notes. Protect important content with PIN and Face ID for an extra layer of privacy. SEARCH EVERYTHING QUICKLY Find notes, folders, and reminders with built-in search. Search by title, note content, folder, tags, checklist items, reminder details, and more. No more scrolling forever to find one old note. A CLEAN DESIGN FOR DAILY USE Notely is built to feel simple, calm, and easy to use. The app is focused on the things that matter most: capturing, organizing, remembering, and protecting your notes. It is useful for students, professionals, creators, parents, planners, writers, and anyone who wants a simple notes organizer on iPhone. NOTELY PRO Upgrade to Notely Pro to unlock more powerful features and remove free limits. Notely Pro includes: • Unlimited notes • Unlimited reminders • Voice notes • Image attachments • Private vault • Locked folders • Unlimited folders • Recurring reminders • Tags • Pin notes • Dark mode • Profile photo The free version is great for getting started. Pro is built for users who want more space, more organization, and more privacy. USE NOTELY FOR • Quick notes • Daily memos • To-do lists • Checklists • Voice notes • Private notes • Locked notes • Study notes • Work notes • Personal planning • Shopping lists • Travel plans • Finance notes • Project ideas • Reminders Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Better Notes
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Better Notes is a focused idea studio for handwriting, sketching, typed notes and PDF annotation. It combines the freedom of paper with the organisation and editing tools of a modern native app. WRITE NATURALLY Capture smooth, pressure-aware ink with fountain pen, ballpoint, fineliner, pencil, calligraphy, brush, reed pen, marker and highlighter tools. Adjust colour, width and stabilisation, then erase by stroke or precisely through ink. BUILD PAGES YOUR WAY Choose blank, ruled, dotted, grid, Cornell and margin paper. Mix A4, A5, Letter and Legal pages in portrait or landscape—even inside the same notebook. Add, duplicate, bookmark and reorder your thinking page by page. MORE THAN HANDWRITING Add editable styled text, shapes and images. Move, rotate, recolour and organise content across independent layers with visibility, locking and opacity controls. ANNOTATE PDFs Import a PDF, write directly over it and keep its links intact. Export finished work as PDF, PNG, JPEG, Markdown or plain text whenever you need to share or continue elsewhere. RECORD THE MOMENT Attach audio to a page during a lecture, meeting or brainstorming session. Rename recordings and jump back to the page where each recording began. FIND AND ORGANISE IDEAS Create spaces and nested folders, add tags, mark favourites, revisit recent notes and recover items from Trash. Search notebook titles, tags and typed page content from one fast local library. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Better Notes works locally and offline. Your notebooks and recordings stay on your device unless you choose to export or share them. There is no required account, advertising or behavioural tracking. BUILT FOR APPLE DEVICES Enjoy a responsive light interface designed for touch, Apple Pencil, pointer and keyboard. Better Notes supports keyboard shortcuts, accessibility labels and Reduce Motion. Make space for your next thought—and keep every stroke editable.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Better Notes at none against Notely's 2. Notely's advantage is iOS requirement (16.6 vs 18.0). 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
Both are free to download. Notely sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Better Notes asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Notely | Better Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 61 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Muhammad Faizan | Luke Mclaughlin |
In-app purchases
Notely
- Notely Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
- Notely Pro Yearly$19.991 Year
Better Notes
No in-app purchases









