Comparison

SnapNote vs Recto MD

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

Head to head
About

SnapNote

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Turn photos into notes you can use. SnapNote organizes receipts, tables, meeting notes, study materials, and everyday documents into readable, editable, searchable notes. After downloading and activating a local model, text recognition, organization, and Ask Notes run on your device. No app account or cloud AI API is required. From photos to notes Capture pages with the camera or import images from your photo library. Review, crop, and rotate pages, then choose a document type or template. Keep the original images, OCR text, and organized result together so you can check and edit the output. Ask your own documents Select saved notes to summarize key points, compare information, or create action lists. Source references help you return to the relevant note and verify the answer. Preview, save, and share generated Markdown and CSV files within the app. Organize your way Manage your library with document types, tags, favorites, and search. Use built-in templates for common tasks, or define your own structure and instructions with custom templates. Export note results in multiple formats for further editing or archiving. Made for iPhone Duo Browse a list and its details side by side on the inner display. Split views cover Notes, Ask Notes, Generated Files, Templates, and Settings. The outer display and standard iPhones retain a comfortable single-column experience. On-device processing and privacy Photos, recognized text, and notes are processed and stored on your device rather than sent to our document-processing servers. Initial model setup and model updates require an internet connection and sufficient storage. Once a model is ready, core features can work offline. AI output may contain mistakes; check it against the original material. Free and Pro Basic recognition, note management, and the basic model are free, with no per-use processing charge. Optional auto-renewable SnapNote Pro subscriptions unlock advanced models, multi-page batch recognition, PDF import, custom templates, and CSV export from Ask Notes. Monthly and annual plans are available. Prices, features, and availability are shown in the app's purchase screen. Apple handles payment; manage or cancel subscriptions in your Apple Account settings. Support: https://snapnote.bitanoworks.com/en/support Privacy Policy: https://snapnote.bitanoworks.com/en/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Recto MD

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Recto MD opens a Markdown file and gets out of the way. Open one from Files, Mail or Safari with Open in Recto MD, or share it in from any app. On iPadOS and iOS 26, Files > Get Info > Always Open With makes it the default. Reading comes first: pick a file and it is on screen, typeset and ready, nothing to configure. When you want to change something, Edit mode puts the source next to the live preview - side by side on iPad, a Source/Preview switch on iPhone - and Save is explicit, so nothing is written until you ask for it. TYPOGRAPHY FIRST The reading column, the leading and the vertical rhythm are the product. Pinch to zoom the whole page from 50% to 300% - text, measure and margins scale together, the way a browser's page zoom does - the column measure also has three widths, and the page is laid out so a long document stays comfortable rather than merely legible. RENDERS WHAT YOUR DOCUMENTS ACTUALLY CONTAIN - CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown: tables, task lists, strikethrough, autolinks, footnotes - GitHub-style alerts: NOTE, TIP, IMPORTANT, WARNING, CAUTION - Mermaid diagrams, loaded only when a document has one - Mathematics and chemistry, typeset by KaTeX: inline and display LaTeX, and mhchem chemical equations. The delimiters are narrow on purpose, so a price written as $5 stays a price - Syntax-highlighted fenced code blocks, with a copy button - Wide tables scroll inside the reading column, so the page itself never scrolls sideways EDITING, WHEN YOU WANT IT Edit mode puts a source pane beside the live preview - side by side on iPad, a Source/Preview switch on iPhone. Save is explicit, and nothing autosaves in the background. Export the document as a PDF whenever you want a copy to share. FIND YOUR WAY AROUND An outline is generated from the document's headings: a sheet on iPhone, a sidebar on iPad that also holds your recent documents. Search inside a document with a live match count and step through the matches. Recents remembers where you stopped reading and puts you back there. IT UPDATES WHILE YOU READ Change the file somewhere else and the document updates in place - same scroll position, no flash, no reload button to hunt for. If you have unsaved edits, the app stops and asks instead of choosing for you. Turn auto-reload off and you get a "File changed" tap target instead. A THEME EDITOR, NOT A THEME PICKER Duplicate a built-in theme or start from nothing, and tune it in six groups: text (font, scale, line height, spacing, indent, justification); headings (font, weight, an accent color, rules, and a size for each of the six levels); layout (column width by characters, points or percent, a max width, custom margins, a page-card look); sidebar (font size and step per level, row height, indent, background and accent mix); blocks (code font and size, table density and zebra striping, blockquote style, the code syntax palette); and color, down to the selection highlight. Import or export any theme as JSON. OFFLINE, AND PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION The app makes no network requests at all. No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no tracking, nothing collected. Your documents are files on your device or in your iCloud Drive, and that is where they stay. BUILT FOR THE PLATFORM Dynamic Type through to the accessibility sizes, VoiceOver reading real document structure, Increase Contrast, Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency are all honoured. With a hardware keyboard, every navigation shortcut is independently rebindable - pick the key, choose Command, Option or Shift, and the app flags a conflict before you save one - and Open, Find, Find Next, Reload, the zoom commands and Settings are all one keystroke away, listed in the Command-hold sheet. The interface is available in twelve languages, with a System option and a picker for the one you want.

Screenshots

SnapNote4 screens
Recto MD4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Recto MD at none against SnapNote's 2. Recto MD also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs fortnightly) and device support (3 vs 1). On price and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. SnapNote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Recto MD asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SnapNote ships an update fortnightly, Recto MD every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences ยท 2 level
SnapNote versus Recto MD: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSnapNoteRecto MD
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 3 days โ€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac โ€” better
Requires iOS26.018.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size110 MB13 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developerๆฃฎ ๆŸดITSUCARA, K.K.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

SnapNote

Subscriptions2
  • SnapNote Pro Monthly$0.991 Month
  • SnapNote Pro Yearly$12.991 Year
None

Recto MD

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SnapNote free?
SnapNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Recto MD free?
Recto MD is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do SnapNote or Recto MD have ads?
Neither SnapNote nor Recto MD shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SnapNote or Recto MD?
SnapNote ships an update fortnightly, and Recto MD every 3 days. Most recently, SnapNote was updated on November 5, 2026 and Recto MD on October 31, 2026.

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