Comparison

petal vs Branchnote

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

Head to head
About

petal

This app provides a private space to capture and organize your thoughts without immediate categorization. It offers smart sorting, rich text editing, document scanning, and offline functionality, ensuring your ideas are saved and easily retrievable.

Highlights
  • Capture first, file later
  • Smart sorting learns your preferences
  • Document scanning to searchable PDFs
  • Rich text editing with formatting options
  • Dictation for voice-to-text notes
  • Offline functionality
  • Recently deleted notes recovery
Features
Read full description

Petal is a forget-me-not for your mind - a quiet, private place to put every thought you don't want to lose. Most note apps ask you to decide where something belongs before you've finished thinking it. Petal doesn't. You open it, you write, and it handles the filing. CAPTURE FIRST, FILE LATER Start typing the moment the app opens. Your words are saved as you go, so a half-finished thought survives a phone call, a locked screen or a closed app. Nothing is categorized until you say so. SMART SORT When you're ready to save, Smart Sort reads the note and puts it in the right category for you. It learns from your corrections, so it gets better the more you use it. Prefer to file it yourself? Choose a category and Petal won't second-guess you. PHOTOS, FILES AND DOCUMENT SCANNING • Attach photos straight from your library, or take a new one with the camera. • Scan paper with the camera and Petal turns it into a searchable PDF, right inside the note. • Add files you already have, rename them, and preview them without leaving the note. A PROPER EDITOR Bold, italic and underline. Bulleted lists, numbered lists and checklists — with the option to drop ticked items to the bottom. Adjustable text size. Paste that keeps your structure and leaves someone else's formatting behind. Links recognized automatically. DICTATION Speak a note instead of typing it, punctuation and all. FIND ANYTHING Search across every note, browse by category, and create, rename, color and reorder categories to match the way you think. NOTHING LOST BY ACCIDENT Deleted notes wait in Recently Deleted for 15 days. Restore one and it goes back where it came from. WORKS OFFLINE Write on a plane, in a lift or in a basement. Changes are kept on your device and sync as soon as you're back online. LIGHT AND DARK Petal follows your system appearance automatically, or you can pin it to light or dark in Settings. YOURS ALONE Your notes belong to you. Sign in with an email and password, read the privacy policy any time from Settings, and permanently delete your account - and everything in it - whenever you choose. Plant your thoughts. Petal will remember them for you.

About

Branchnote

Organize your thoughts and tasks with a hierarchical note-taking system. Create branches for topics, add sub-branches, and write notes using Markdown formatting. Secure your notes with a passcode and biometrics.

Highlights
  • Branch-based organization
  • Nested sub-branches
  • Markdown writing
  • Checkbox lists
  • Full-text search
  • Passcode and biometric lock
  • Local backup and restore
Features
Read full description

Branchnote is a notes app organized around branches — named containers, one per topic, with every note living in exactly one of them. Branches can hold sub-branches, as many levels deep as you like. Every branch is its own feed. Type at the top to add a note, and pin one to keep it at the top of the branch. No account needed. Open the app and start writing. ORGANIZE BY TOPIC Make a branch for work, recipes, reading, half-formed ideas — whatever you actually keep notes about. Add sub-branches to any branch, like Recipes/Desserts/Cookies. Move a note, or a whole branch with everything in it, whenever something ends up in the wrong place. WRITE IN MARKDOWN Headings, bold, italics, and links that render as cards. Bullet, numbered, and checkbox lists, nested up to four levels, with checkboxes you can tick right in the note. Formatting renders as you type, and a toolbar above the keyboard applies any of it without having to remember the syntax. FIND ANYTHING Full-text search across every note, ranked by relevance, with matching excerpts pulled out and your search terms highlighted in the results. LOCK IT Set a passcode and Branchnote locks every time you return to it. Unlock with your passcode, or with biometrics if your device supports it. Your notes stay covered in the app switcher. BACK IT UP Copy your notes into a single file and save it wherever you like, then restore it whenever you need to.

Screenshots

petal4 screens
Branchnote4 screens

Verdict

The call

petal and Branchnote are too close to call on the numbers: across 9 compared parameters — price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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 petal against 5.0 for Branchnote. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

petal ships an update every 9 days, Branchnote weekly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
petal versus Branchnote: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterpetalBranchnote
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (3 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings34 — better
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB39 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAaditya SharmaBranchnote LLC

Customer experience

petal

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Branchnote

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

petal

No in-app purchases

None

Branchnote

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is petal free?
petal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Branchnote free?
Branchnote is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, petal or Branchnote?
petal and Branchnote are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 3 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do petal or Branchnote have ads?
Neither petal nor Branchnote shows ads.
Which is updated more often, petal or Branchnote?
petal ships an update every 9 days, and Branchnote weekly. Most recently, petal was updated on October 31, 2026 and Branchnote on October 31, 2026.

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