smalltype vs FolikPDF
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
smalltype
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Short notes, many times a day, saved as plain .md files in real folders. Open the same folder on your Mac in VS Code, Vim, or any editor. Calm, minimal, and ready for iPhone Duo. smalltype is for your notes. The small ones, the quick ones, the big ones, the unpolished ones. It's a fast, quiet place to type. ## Start No tutorial, no setup screen. Tap New Note and start typing. Leave one empty and it quietly disappears, so you never end up with a pile of blank untitled notes. That's the whole app. ## Yours Every note is a real .md file, sitting right there in the Files app. You can open it, copy it, or back it up yourself, anytime. Delete one and it still goes to Recently Deleted, same as any other file: nothing's gone for good. ## Sync or Don't Keep notes in iCloud Drive to have them on every device. Or keep them On My iPhone, fully local, never leaving your device. Either way, you can switch anytime. ## Visible Markdown Markdown markers stay gently visible as you type. What you see is exactly what's in the file. A bar above the keyboard types the markers for you, with undo and redo a tap away. ## Organize Folders, search, and quick note-making, all from one screen. Nothing to set up first. Put "daily" in a folder's name and new notes inside it get today's date as their name. ## No Catch No ads. No subscription. No tracking. No account, ever. Markdown notes. Yours to keep.
FolikPDF
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Folik is a private, capable PDF workspace for iPhone and iPad. It is completely free: no ads, no subscription, no account, and no in-app purchases. READ AND FIND ⢠Open PDFs from Files or other apps ⢠Search with contextual results and next/previous navigation ⢠Use continuous, single-page, or two-page layouts ⢠Browse thumbnails, outlines, and bookmarks SCAN ON DEVICE ⢠Capture multi-page documents with automatic edge detection ⢠Recognize text locally so new scans are searchable ⢠Keep scans inside Folik unless you choose to share them FILL AND SIGN ⢠Complete standard PDF text, checkbox, radio, and choice fields ⢠Track required fields and jump to the next unfinished field ⢠Create handwritten or typed signatures and initials ANNOTATE AND ORGANIZE ⢠Highlight, underline, strike through, draw, add notes, shapes, text, and stamps ⢠Move, resize, recolor, undo, and redo annotations ⢠Reorder, rotate, duplicate, delete, extract, or combine pages in a new copy EXPORT YOUR WAY ⢠Share the original ⢠Create an editable copy ⢠Export a flattened copy for consistent appearance PRIVATE BY DESIGN Folik processes documents, scans, text recognition, and edits on your device. It has no backend, analytics SDK, or advertising SDK. Compatibility note: Folik supports standard AcroForm fields exposed by iOS. XFA-only forms, certificate-backed digital signatures, JavaScript calculations, and vendor-specific PDF behavior may not be supported. EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Folik is open source under the MIT License. https://github.com/x3n-network/FolikPDF
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: FolikPDF at 18.6 against smalltype's 26.0. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
smalltype ships an update every 5 days, FolikPDF every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | smalltype | FolikPDF |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | Every 4 days ā better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad ā better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.6 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Herman Haidin | JOSEPH AARON SPEARS |
In-app purchases
smalltype
No in-app purchases
FolikPDF
No in-app purchases









