Notebook vs Standard Notes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Notebook
Capture your thoughts, ideas, and tasks with a versatile digital notebook. Create rich notes with text, files, audio, and video. Organize content visually, collaborate in real-time, and access everything across your devices.
- Rich note creation with text, files, audio, and video
- Checklist creation for task management
- Bookmark collection and offline reading
- Kanban-style note organization
- Real-time collaboration and sharing
- AI-powered journaling suggestions
- Cross-device and cloud synchronization
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Zoho Notebook is a free, ad-free note-taking app for students, teams and researchers: capture, find and reuse what you write down — typed notes, Apple Pencil handwriting, voice recordings with AI transcription, checklists, files and document scans in one note. Syncs across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and other devices. WHAT PEOPLE USE NOTEBOOK FOR 1. MEETING AND LECTURE NOTES Record with audio or video cards; Notebook AI turns it into searchable text with timestamps, so you jump straight to the decision instead of replaying it. Structured minutes with title, participants, decisions and action points sit in the note beside your highlights. Record screen and self at once; longer videos get chapters. 2. STUDY AND RESEARCH Record lectures and search the transcript weeks later. Scan textbooks and business cards, handwrite and sketch with Apple Pencil, use OCR to find text inside photos and handwritten notes, so nothing you captured becomes unfindable. A long note becomes an AI mind map before an exam. 3. DAILY TO-DOS AND JOURNALING Dedicated checklist cards keep tasks beside your notes, and recurring reminders keep them on schedule. Journaling prompts come from your own activity, easier to keep than a blank page. 4. FILES, SCANS, AND SAVED READING Add PDFs, Word docs and spreadsheets with file cards. Articles, videos, recipes and how-tos become Smart Cards, formatted automatically, readable offline and ad-free. Group it all into nested collections. QUESTIONS PEOPLE ASK Is it free? Yes, with 2GB of free storage and no ads. Notebook Pro adds more storage, longer notes, larger attachments, Email-In to save emails as notes, premium covers, and custom recurring reminders. Can I move my notes from Evernote, Google Keep, or OneNote? Yes, with dedicated migration tools; it arrives organized. Is my data private? Notes are encrypted in transit and at rest. We never sell your data and never show ads. Lock notes or notebooks with a password, Touch ID or Face ID; previews stay hidden until unlocked. Does it work offline? Yes. Create, edit and read offline, then pick up on another device once it syncs to the cloud. What can Notebook AI do? Transcribe audio and video, build mind maps, summarize and simplify, fix grammar, set tone (casual, professional, friendly, direct, or confident), translate into any language, draft notes, checklists, tables, code or a template from a prompt, and suggest tags. Notebook AI is a separate add-on. Does it use on-device AI and Siri? Yes. An on-device Knowledge Graph links ideas across notebooks and answers questions from your own notes. Siri creates and updates notes by voice with the app closed, and On-Screen Awareness summarizes what's on screen without switching apps. Can I share with non-users? Yes. @mention people to collaborate in real time, or publish a public note or video by link. MORE INSIDE - Search by title, content, tag, collaborator, or notebook; filter by any card type, contact, or link; search within one note; sort by date or relevance, with auto-suggestions and recent searches, offline and across languages - iPhone: text-search audio notes, share via iMessage, dictate with Siri, recent notes from the Notification Bar, SharePlay in calls - iPad: drag and drop, split view, slide over, multiple windows, Stage Manager - Apple Watch: record audio, scribble notes, check off lists, add photo notes, record in one tap from a watch face complication - VoiceOver and a dark interface - Roll back to any of a note's last 10 versions Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled and are charged to your Apple Account. Prices vary by location. Manage in your account settings. Privacy - https://www.zoho.com/privacy.html Terms - https://www.zoho.com/terms.html
Standard Notes
Securely capture and sync your thoughts across all devices with end-to-end encryption. This app offers a simple, lasting place for all your notes, from personal thoughts to sensitive information, with robust privacy features.
- End-to-end encryption
- Cross-device syncing
- Offline access
- Passcode and biometric lock
- Tagging system
- Open-source code
- Optional productivity editors and themes
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Standard Notes is a private and secure end-to-end encrypted notes app. It allows you to write and sync your notes across all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web browser. Private means your notes are end-to-end encrypted, so only you can read your notes. Even we can't read the contents of your notes. Simple means it does one job and does it well. Standard Notes is a safe and lasting place for your life's work. Our focus is making it easy to write notes wherever you are and syncing them with encryption to all your devices. Our users love us for: • Personal Notes • Tasks & Todos • Passwords & Keys • Code & Technical Procedures • Private Journal • Meeting Notes • Cross-platform Scratchpad • Books, Recipes, & Movies • Health & Fitness Log Standard Notes comes free with: • Seamless sync across all your devices, with easy to use applications on iPhone, iPad, Mac, web browsers, and other platforms. • Offline access, so you can access your downloaded notes even without a connection. • No limit on number of devices. • No limit on number of notes. • Passcode lock protection, along with Touch ID and Face ID protection. • A tagging system to organize your notes (like #work, #ideas, #passwords, #crypto). • The ability to pin, lock, protect, and move notes to trash, which allows you to recover deleted notes until the trash is emptied. Standard Notes is completely open-source, which means when we say your notes are encrypted with industry-leading XChaCha-20 encryption, and that only you can read your notes, you don't have to take our word for it. Our code is open to the world to audit. We made Standard Notes simple because longevity is important to us. We want to make sure we're here, protecting your notes, for the next hundred years. You shouldn't have to find a new notes app every year. To sustain our development, we offer optional paid subscriptions which give you access to powerful tools like: • Productivity editors (like Markdown, Code, Spreadsheets) • Beautiful themes (like Midnight, Focus, Solarized Dark) • Powerful cloud tools including daily backups of your encrypted data delivered to your email inbox every day, or backed up to your cloud provider (like Dropbox and Google Drive). We're always happy to talk, whether it be a question, thought, or issue. Please feel free to email us any time at help@standardnotes.com. When you take the time to send us a message, we'll be sure to do the same. EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Notebook at every 6 days against Standard Notes's every 2 weeks. Notebook also leads on ratings volume (24K vs 3.7K). Standard Notes's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. Notebook sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $2.49 per month and Standard Notes sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $119.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Notebook against 4.7 for Standard Notes. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Notebook has 24K ratings behind it against 3.7K, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 65% of Notebook's written reviews are positive against 63% of Standard Notes's.
Notebook ships an update every 6 days, Standard Notes every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Notebook | Standard Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (24K ratings) | 4.7 (3.7K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 64.7% of reviews — better | 63.4% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 24K — better | 3.7K |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 220 MB | 92 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Zoho Corporation | Standard Notes Ltd. |
Customer experience
Notebook
Standard Notes
User reviews
Notebook
From 24K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Highly organized and customizable
- 👍 Visually appealing and intuitive
- 🔒 Secure with password protection
- 🤳 Seamless cross-device sync
- 📝 Versatile note-taking features
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional sync and stability issues
- 🔀 Inconsistent note order after editing
- 🔍 Limited search functionality
- 📤 Lack of export/backup options
- 🔗 Difficulty inserting links in notes
Standard Notes
From 3.7K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast and reliable sync
- 🔒 Excellent privacy and security
- 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
- 📚 Great for organizing notes
- 💻 Cross-platform availability
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional bugs and crashes
- 🔑 Frustrating login/authentication issues
- 💰 Expensive premium subscription
- 📱 Limited features in free version
- 🖍️ Lack of formatting options
Bugs and requests
Notebook
Reported bugs
4 issues- Notes disappearing or getting corrupted
- Freezing and crashing issues
- Inconsistent behavior when editing notes
- Syncing problems across devices
Requested features
5 requests- Improved sorting and reordering options for notes
- Enhanced search capabilities
- Ability to export notes in various formats
- More customization options for notebook covers
- Integration with other productivity apps
Standard Notes
Reported bugs
4 issues- Notes disappearing or getting deleted unexpectedly
- Sync issues between devices
- Keyboard and UI bugs on mobile
- Compatibility problems with older iOS versions
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for images and attachments
- Implement a more robust search function
- Introduce a dark mode option
- Allow for better note organization (folders, nested tags)
- Add undo/redo functionality
In-app purchases
Notebook
- Notebook Pro$2.491 Month
- Notebook Pro Plus$3.991 Month
- Notebook AI$4.991 Month
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- Notebook Personal$14.991 Year
- Notebook Pro2 variants$24.991 Year
- Notebook Pro Plus$39.991 Year
- Notebook AI$49.991 Year
Standard Notes
- Professional Plan7 Days trial$119.991 Year








