Comparison

Pencora vs NoteGuide

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

Head to head
About

Pencora

Features
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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 writeβ€”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 onceβ€”or pick a ready-made handβ€”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 β€’ Lined, grid, dotted, or PDF paper β€’ Shape snapping for lines, circles, and polygons β€’ Highlighter, study tape, and scribble-to-erase β€’ A lasso that moves, scales, rotates, and changes stroke width β€’ A zoom-write strip for small, neat writing β€’ Calligraphy nibs and an eyedropper β€’ Markdown text boxes and live formulas β€’ True-vector PDF export that stays crisp at any zoom β€’ Folders, tags, and tabs β€’ 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 filesβ€”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.

About

NoteGuide

Features
Read full description

NoteGuide is a squared notebook you write in by hand, with a stylus or a finger, and someone who reads back what you wrote. Write as you would on paper: notes or exercises, in any subject. Then you have two buttons. β€’ Check reads the sheet back and marks the mistakes where they are, in red. It works for calculations and for facts too: if you wrote a wrong date in your notes, it tells you. β€’ Hint tells you where to start again when you are stuck, without giving you the solution. You can also import a PDF (handouts, homework, notes taken with another app) and have it checked like any other page. If the exercise is longer than one page, select several sheets and it checks them together. Your notebooks stay on your device. When you ask for a check, the image of the sheet is sent to the model and then deleted: nothing stays on our server. Each check uses a little credit: some may be offered for free, the rest is bought in the app. Writing, drawing, pasting photos and exporting to PDF cost nothing and work offline too. NoteGuide speaks English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch, Polish, Turkish, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Chinese.

Screenshots

Pencora4 screens
NoteGuide3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Pencora at none against NoteGuide's 6. NoteGuide's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 6 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

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

CostPrice Β· In-app purchases Β· Ads Β· Monetization

Both are free to download. NoteGuide sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Pencora asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Pencora ships an update every 6 weeks, NoteGuide every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences Β· 3 level
Pencora versus NoteGuide: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPencoraNoteGuide
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 2 days β€” better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo β€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod β€” better
Requires iOS17.015.0 β€” better
Further details β€” not scored
Size144 MB0 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAnastasia NaumkinaEttore Tasini

In-app purchases

None

Pencora

No in-app purchases

6 purchases

NoteGuide

One-time6
  • Credit 0.99 €$0.99
  • Credit 1.99 €$1.99
  • Credit 4.99 €$3.99
Show 3 more
  • Credit 9.99 €$8.99
  • Credit 24.99 €$22.99
  • Credit 99.99 €$89.99

Questions

Is Pencora free?
Pencora is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is NoteGuide free?
NoteGuide is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Pencora or NoteGuide have ads?
Neither Pencora nor NoteGuide shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Pencora or NoteGuide?
Pencora ships an update every 6 weeks, and NoteGuide every 2 days. Most recently, Pencora was updated on October 3, 2026 and NoteGuide on September 21, 2026.

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