ArkNote vs Rectoly for Zotero
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ArkNote
Organize your daily life with a unified journaling and task management system. Capture thoughts, to-dos, and reflections in a chronological timeline, with features like recurring tasks and customizable templates to streamline your record-keeping.
- Daily chronological timeline
- Integrated notes and to-dos
- Recurring and auto-carrying tasks
- Customizable templates
- Nested tags for organization
- System Share Extension for quick capture
- iCloud sync and JSON backup
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ArkNote - Stay Present, Record Every Day It is a note-taking and life-logging app designed around each day. Notes, Todos, reading lists, reflections, and movie reviews no longer need to be scattered across different apps. ArkNote brings them together in a clear daily timeline: write today, continue tomorrow, and rediscover them years later in “Time Rings.” 【Bring Your Records Back to Each Day】 Swipe left or right to switch dates, or use the calendar to quickly look back. Your thoughts, tasks, photos, and everyday moments are naturally organized by time. 【More Than Text Notes】 Add Todos, photos and videos, links, reminders, moods, ratings, tags, and child notes. Use lists, bold text, colors, and covers to give every kind of content the right form. 【Todos No Longer Quietly Expire】 Unfinished items can automatically carry over to today. Recurring tasks can reappear daily, weekly, or on a custom schedule, naturally connecting yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 【Templates Make Repeated Records Easier】 Create templates for reading lists, movie journals, daily reflections, or your own workflows. Customize their icons, colors, and covers to reduce repetitive steps and make it easier to start recording. 【Stay Organized Without the Effort】 Use nested tags to organize different topics, and quickly search titles, text, Todos, links, and tags. Open “Time Rings · On This Day” to rediscover records from the same date in previous years. 【Quick Capture and Sharing】 Use the system Share Extension to quickly import web pages, text, and links into ArkNote. When a record is complete, save or send it through system sharing, as an image, or as a PDF. 【Sync and Backup】 Optionally sync across devices with iCloud. JSON backup, export, and restore are also supported, helping you keep important records safe. May ArkNote help you carry today forward and connect it with tomorrow ===== ArkNote is available for monthly subscription, annual subscription or one-time purchase. When you choose the subscription plan, we will charge your iTunes account after the free trial starts or the purchase is confirmed. The subscription will automatically renew unless you turn off auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the end of the billing period. You can go to your iTunes Account Settings to manage your subscription and turn off auto-renewal. Terms of Use : https://my.feishu.cn/wiki/RXKMwRE5fiRPWokHjabcRmIYnwd Privacy Policy : https://my.feishu.cn/wiki/OpdFw61g9iyFsNk7fshcRdOZnTd
Rectoly for Zotero
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Rectoly is the research-focused PDF reader built for Zotero users. Your library stays in Zotero — Rectoly makes reading and annotating on iPhone, iPad and Mac a genuine pleasure. READING MODE Academic papers are often formatted in two columns, making them hard to read on a phone. Reading Mode reflows the content into a single, clean column — without losing access to the original PDF. Jump back to the exact page anytime. ANNOTATE IN READING MODE Unlike other readers, Rectoly lets you highlight, underline, add sticky notes, and draw with Apple Pencil — all while staying in Reading Mode. No need to switch back to the raw PDF just to mark something up. ON-DEVICE TRANSLATION Read an English paper in your own language, in Reading Mode and on the PDF page. Translation runs on this device; the paper is never sent to a translation service. If you agree, translations are saved to your Zotero library for your other devices (using your Zotero storage). The app's translation model (about 2.5 GB) needs 8 GB of memory or more. Translates English papers into the app's 19 other display languages: Hindi by the system's translator (iOS 26 or later), all the rest by the app's own model. TOOLS FOR READING Read Aloud: hear the text in Reading Mode, in the system voice or the VoiceOver one. Choose the typeface and line spacing in Reading Mode. “Darken PDF pages” softens text and paper to gray tones while leaving figures and photos in their original colors when possible. SPLIT VIEW INSIDE THE READER Keep Reading Mode open while glancing at a figure, the original layout, or another section — side by side, all within a single window. No multi-window setup required. RESEARCH THEMES Send a passage to a theme, with its source. Keep the theme beside the paper, or open it as a sheet. Export as Markdown or Word (.docx). ACROSS PAPERS The library column has a new Across papers tab: search the annotations, the text and your handwriting in your whole library at once. FIGURES, TABLES AND A COMPARISON Save a figure as PNG and a table as CSV — one paper at a time, or your whole library in one go. Compare many papers' abstracts, methods, results and conclusions in one table, one row per paper. YOUR DRAFT BESIDE THE PAPER Open the document you are writing (.docx, .doc, .odt, .rtf, Markdown, plain text — password-protected ones too) in a column next to the paper. It re-reads the file every time you save. CITING AND NOTES Copy with page, copy BibTeX or citation keys (Zotero 7's keys and Better BibTeX's are used), and a Notes folder for Obsidian and others — with keyboard shortcuts you can change. ZOTERO SYNC Annotations you create are written back to Zotero automatically. Highlights from Zotero Desktop or other apps appear in Rectoly automatically. Your notes are always in one place. WEBDAV AND LINKED FILES If Zotero syncs your files over WebDAV, Rectoly can now open them — and PDFs you add in the app go to your WebDAV server too. Files that ZotFile or ZotMoov keep in Dropbox or Google Drive open once you choose the folder. WORKS OFFLINE Downloaded PDFs and annotations are stored locally. Read anywhere, anytime — even without an internet connection. SEARCH YOUR HANDWRITING Notes you write with Apple Pencil are now read as text on your device, so you can search them (iPadOS 27 and later). 14-DAY FREE TRIAL → ONE-TIME PURCHASE Try every Pro feature for free for 14 days. Unlock with a one-time payment — no subscription, no recurring charges.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Rectoly for Zotero at daily against ArkNote's every 4 days. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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. ArkNote sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Rectoly for Zotero sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
ArkNote ships an update every 4 days, Rectoly for Zotero daily. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ArkNote | Rectoly for Zotero |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days | Daily — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 65 MB | 45 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | LexyTech Ltd. | Takaki Takemura |
In-app purchases
ArkNote
- Monthly$3.991 Month
- Yearly7 Days trial$6.991 Year
- PRO$14.99
Rectoly for Zotero
- 14-day TrialFree
- Rectoly Pro (one-time)$19.99









