Comparison

Notepad vs InkSpace

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

Head to head
About

Notepad

Capture thoughts, create to-do lists, and organize ideas with a versatile digital notebook. Supports handwriting, text notes, and secure cloud syncing. Personalize your experience with custom themes and icons.

Highlights
  • Create to-do lists with checkboxes
  • Unlimited text notes
  • Handwritten notes with Apple Pencil
  • Organize notes into folders
  • Pin and sort notes
  • iCloud backup and sync
  • Advanced search functionality
Features
Read full description

Jot down notes and organize your ideas with Notepad—the classic notepad writing app designed for keeping track of everything that matters. [ TO-DO LISTS ] • Create beautiful task lists with interactive checkboxes to track your daily tasks and goals. • Drag and drop to reorder items—organize your to-dos exactly how you want them. • Enjoy the satisfying experience of checking off completed tasks as you get things done. • Perfect for shopping lists, daily chores, project tasks, and everything in between. [ NOTES ] • Create unlimited text notes with rich formatting—quickly and easily. • Tap anywhere to start typing—it's simple, fast, and always saved automatically. • Works perfectly in both light and dark mode. [ RICH TEXT FORMATTING ] • Style your notes with bold, italic, underline, and strikethrough. • Choose from 7 text colors and 7 highlight colors to make important details stand out. • Pick from 18 handpicked font families—each with proper bold and italic variants. • A convenient formatting toolbar sits right above the keyboard for fast access. • Switch fonts anytime—your existing formatting is preserved. [ HANDWRITTEN NOTES WITH APPLE PENCIL ] • Capture your thoughts naturally with fluid, responsive handwriting that feels like pen on paper. • Create beautiful handwritten notes, diagrams, and drawings with realistic ink flow and pressure sensitivity. • Choose from fountain pens, pencils, and highlighters with customizable colors for a personalized writing experience. • Enjoy our adaptive paper grid that works perfectly in any orientation or device. [ FOLDERS - ORGANIZE YOUR NOTES ] • Organize notes into folders and subfolders with a clean, nested structure. • Assign a unique color to each folder, making it simple to categorize and find notes at a glance. • Drag-and-drop to reorder, and move multiple notes easily. [ PIN & SORT NOTES ] • Pin important notes to the top and sort by date, custom order, or alphabetical order. [ BACKUP WITH ICLOUD ] • Keep notes safe with automatic backups and iCloud sync across your devices. [ PERSONALIZE YOUR NOTEPAD ] • Give your notepad a personal touch with unique app icons, custom colors, stylish fonts, and a sleek dark mode for night owls. [ FIND NOTES FAST ] • Use advanced search tools and text highlighting to track down exactly what you're looking for. [ KEEP YOUR NOTES SAFE ] • Lock your notes with FaceID or TouchID for extra privacy. [ SHARE & PRINT ] • Send your notes to other apps like Mail or WhatsApp, or print them directly from Notepad. [ PREMIUM FEATURES FOR POWER USERS ] • Go ad-free, unlock exclusive themes, and get advanced sorting options with Premium. Notepad combines the nostalgic feel of a simple notebook with the functionality of today's tech. Use Notepad for everything from brainstorming ideas and setting personal reminders to creating shopping lists, to-do lists, grocery lists, chores lists, appointment notes, class notes, daily goals, password hints, birthday reminders, packing lists, travel itineraries, and more. Write, organize, and stay on top of everything that matters—download Notepad now and stay productive your way! Terms of Use & Privacy Policy: https://www.oldnotepad.com/terms.

About

InkSpace

This digital notebook app offers complete creative freedom for note-taking, brainstorming, sketching, and journaling. Customize notebooks with various templates, page styles, and colors. Organize and access notes seamlessly across devices, with offline functionality.

Highlights
  • Unlimited custom notebooks
  • Write, draw, and sketch with stylus support
  • Insert custom shapes, text, and media
  • Searchable tags and bookmarks
  • Sync across all devices
  • Offline functionality
Features
Read full description

The all-in-one notebook for handwriting, typing, PDFs, math, diagrams, and more. Built for students who want to learn faster and professionals who want to work smarter. Take handwritten notes, mark up PDFs, solve equations, and record lectures, all in one organized space that keeps your work together and in sync across your devices. Write and draw naturally Capture notes in your own handwriting with smooth, responsive ink. Prefer to type? Switch to the keyboard anytime, with a full font picker and control over size, color, bold, italic, underline, and alignment. Add horizontal and vertical rulers to keep everything precise. Choose the perfect page Start on college ruled, wide ruled, graph, dotted, or blank paper in A4, A5, B5, or custom sizes, portrait or landscape. Personalize everything with custom notebook and page colors, backgrounds, and tints. Templates for every purpose Jump into ready-made template packs for real life: • Planner templates for daily planning and scheduling • Journal templates for reflection and journaling • Fitness templates for workouts and tracking • Teaching templates for lesson planning and classes • Finance and trading templates for money and markets • Handwriting and calendar templates for practice and organization Or build and save your own so your favorite layouts are always one tap away. Study and remember more Turn any subject into a quiz set, a deck of flip cards you can shuffle, grade, and drill yourself with until it sticks. Perfect for exam prep, vocabulary, and quick daily review. Find anything instantly InkSpace reads your handwriting and makes it searchable. Search across every notebook to surface handwritten notes, typed text, sticky notes, code, lists, and tags in seconds. Spotlight finds notes right from the Home Screen, and Siri Shortcuts let you create, open, and search notes hands-free. Work smarter with rich, interactive objects Drop live tools onto your page and move them anywhere: • Math equations with automatic formatting from everyday notation • Calculator with named variables, unit and currency conversion, and financial functions like PMT, FV, and PV • Charts with a built-in data editor and multiple chart types • Function graphs for visualizing equations • Code blocks with syntax highlighting for Swift, Python, JavaScript, Java, C++, and many more • Audio recordings to capture lectures and meetings alongside your notes • Images, maps, and 3D models embedded directly on your pages • Tables and grids with fully editable cells and real formulas • Checklists and lists with bullets, numbers, and checkboxes • Sticky notes and shapes to structure and highlight your thinking Build diagrams and connect ideas Create flowcharts, mind maps, and org-style diagrams by linking shapes, text, and sticky notes with connectors and arrows. Explore without limits using infinite zoom and fractal canvas modes that give you endless room to think. Write papers that are ready to hand in Draft a full essay with proper margins, then let InkSpace build your entire bibliography from your sources in APA, MLA, or Chicago style. Export to PDF or Word, formatted and ready to submit. Organize everything your way Group your notebooks, papers, and quiz sets together into backpacks. Bookmark notebooks and pages, tag pages for fast filtering, connect notes with cross-notebook page links that preview inline, and add hyperlinks to jump anywhere. Import PDFs to reference, attach files, and export pages to share. Sync securely with iCloud Your notebooks stay up to date on every device with iCloud, so your notes are always with you. Perfect for • Students: lecture notes, study guides, math and science homework, searchable revision, recorded classes, quiz sets, and notebooks for every subject • Professionals: meeting notes, project planning, diagrams, referenced PDFs, quick calculations, and reusable templates

Screenshots

Notepad4 screens
InkSpace4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: InkSpace at none against Notepad's shown. InkSpace also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 84%). Notepad's advantage is ratings volume (29K vs 11) and monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid). On price, rating, update cadence and in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Notepad sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and InkSpace sells 7 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Notepad holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Notepad has 29K ratings behind it against 11, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 84% of Notepad's written reviews are positive against 100% of InkSpace's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Notepad ships an update every 8 days, InkSpace every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Notepad versus InkSpace: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNotepadInkSpace
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (29K ratings) — better4.6 (11 ratings)
Positive reviews84.2% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings29K — better11
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterEvery 10 days
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size76 MB75 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer1381802 Ontario Inc.Tyler Sherman

Customer experience

Notepad

All ratings28,689 ratings
Positive96.6%
Neutral1.8%
Negative1.5%
Written reviews990 reviews
Positive84.2%
Neutral4.6%
Negative11.1%

InkSpace

All ratings11 ratings
Positive90.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative9.1%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Notepad

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Notes randomly disappearing
  • Ads covering up the note-taking area

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add drawing/highlighting tools
  • Integrate with calendar and contacts
  • Ability to sort and organize notes
  • Option to password protect specific notes

InkSpace

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

7 purchases

Notepad

Subscriptions4
  • Monthly Premium Membership$1.991 Month
  • Monthly Premium Subscription$2.991 Month
  • Yearly Premium Subscription$14.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Yearly Premium Subscription$19.991 Year
One-time3
  • Lifetime Premium Membership$19.99
  • Lifetime Premium Membership$29.99
  • Lifetime Premium Membership$49.99
7 purchases

InkSpace

One-time7
  • Fitness Pack$0.99
  • Finance Pack$0.99
  • Handwriting Pack$0.99
Show 4 more
  • Planner Pack$0.99
  • Teaching Pack$0.99
  • Journal Pack$0.99
  • InkSpace Pro$9.99

Questions

Is Notepad free?
Notepad is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is InkSpace free?
InkSpace is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Notepad or InkSpace?
Notepad is rated higher. Notepad averages 4.8 out of 5 from 29K ratings, while InkSpace averages 4.6 from 11 ratings.
Do Notepad or InkSpace have ads?
Notepad shows ads; InkSpace does not.
Which is updated more often, Notepad or InkSpace?
Notepad ships an update every 8 days, and InkSpace every 10 days. Most recently, Notepad was updated on November 3, 2026 and InkSpace on October 25, 2026.

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