Best Note Taking App 2026: Picks, Free Limits and Prices

The best note taking app for most people in 2026 is Microsoft OneNote: free on every platform, with no cap on how many notes you keep. Apple Notes wins on iPhone and Mac, Google Keep for quick notes, Notion for teams, Obsidian if you want your own files, and Goodnotes on an iPad. We checked 20 apps' free limits, prices and store ratings on 27 October 2026.

Everything below was read on 27 October 2026 from Delhi. The sources are each app's own pricing page as it loads in India, and its App Store ratings in India and the US through Apple's search API. We also read each Google Play India listing and the best note taking apps lists Google currently cites, from Zapier and PCMag to Android Police. The two apps that work without an account, Logseq and Standard Notes, were tried in a browser the same day.

What is the best note taking app?

Microsoft OneNote, and three of the pages Google cites for this search agree. Zapier's list of 11 December 2025 calls it "the best free note-taking app and in serious contention to be the best note-taking app overall". PCMag's list, updated 20 May 2026, says it is the first app most people should try. Android Police ran a December 2025 elimination across phones, tablets and e-ink readers and was "left with a clear winner, Microsoft OneNote".

The store numbers back that up. On 27 October 2026, OneNote was rated 4.7 from about 1.07 million ratings on the US App Store and 4.7 from 126,861 in India, per Apple's search API. It is one of only four apps here with a Hindi interface. On Google Play India it shows 1B+ downloads and 4.6 stars from 15 lakh reviews. Two caveats: the iPhone app now requires iOS 26, and readers in the Android Police comments say handwriting on Android lags the iPad version.

The table below is the part no list of the best note taking apps has: every app's free limit and starting price as shown from India, and its ratings in both countries, all read the same day. Ratings are rounded to one decimal; Play counts use Indian notation, where L is lakh and Cr is crore.

Two things the table makes obvious. Apple Notes is a 6 MB download while Goodnotes is 776 MB and Notion 469 MB, which matters on a 64 GB phone. And Evernote is the only app here whose Play listing says "Contains ads", with a 3.5-star rating from 18.5 lakh reviews.

What is the best free note taking app?

OneNote, because its free plan is the whole app, and the only thing you pay Microsoft for is storage and Copilot. Zapier puts the free allowance at 5 GB of notes, and Microsoft's India page prices Microsoft 365 Personal at ₹689 a month. Google Keep, Apple Notes and Simplenote are also complete for free. Obsidian's pricing page says "Free without limits. No sign-up required." Joplin is free and open source.

The free plans to read carefully are the ones with a note cap. Evernote's compare-plans page, loaded from India on 27 October 2026, allows 50 notes, one notebook and one device. UpNote's site says its free version "allows up to 50 notes". Notability's pricing page lists "5 free notes" on its Starter tier. Goodnotes' free plan covers "up to 3 files" with a 5 MB import limit and 20 minutes of audio. Bear is free to write in, but syncing needs Pro. Craft's Starter plan has "a content limit".

Evernote's plans page on October 27, 2026: the free tier stops at 50 notes, one notebook and one device.

The free giants cap storage, not notes. Apple gives every account 5 GB of iCloud, with 50 GB at ₹75 a month in India, per Apple's iCloud page. Google gives 15 GB across Gmail, Drive, Photos and Keep, with 100 GB at ₹130 a month, per Google One. Notesnook's free plan allows unlimited encrypted notes but only 50 MB of uploads a month, per its pricing page.

What is the best note taking app for iPad?

The best iPad note taking app is Goodnotes if you write with an Apple Pencil, and Apple Notes if you would rather not pay. Zapier's iPad list of August 2025 names Goodnotes "the best overall" for its paper-like notebooks and pen controls. Its US App Store rating is 4.7 from 465,083 people and its India rating 4.6 from 59,860, per Apple's API on 27 October 2026. The catch is the download: 776 MB, the largest of the 20 apps we checked.

The price has changed since Zapier wrote. Goodnotes' pricing page on 27 October 2026 shows Free at $0 for up to 3 files and Essential at $11.99 a year after a 7-day trial. Pro is $35.99 a year with sync across devices and AI features. An AI Pass costs $9.99 a month on top. The $35.99 one-time purchase that Zapier lists is no longer on the page; that figure is now yearly.

Goodnotes' plans on October 27, 2026: free for 3 files, $11.99 or $35.99 a year, and a $9.99-a-month AI Pass.

Notability is the closest rival and rates higher in the US, 4.8 from 458,336 against Goodnotes' 4.7, per Apple's API. Its pricing page on 27 October 2026 lists Starter at $0 for "5 free notes" and Lite at $11.99 a year for unlimited notes. Plus is $15.99 a year with limited AI quizzes and audio transcription, and Pro $79.99 a year with unlimited transcription. Those are yearly prices with a 20% promotion applied; the crossed-out figures are $14.99, $19.99 and $99.99.

Notability's plans on October 27, 2026: five notes free, then $11.99, $15.99 or $79.99 a year.

Apple Notes costs nothing, weighs 6 MB and, per its App Store listing, can "record and transcribe audio directly into a note", scan documents, lock notes and search handwriting. It is rated 4.8 from 660,351 in the US and 4.6 from 28,514 in India. If what you really need is to mark up PDFs, our iLovePDF review covers the free tools that do only that.

What is the best AI note taking app?

It depends on which of two things you mean. If you want an app that writes meeting notes for you, Granola is the one to try first. Its pricing page lists a free tier, a Business plan at $14 a user a month and Enterprise at $35, with "bot-free, device-audio capture" and audio deleted after transcription. It is rated 5.0 from 14,621 ratings on the US App Store, the highest of any app we checked, per Apple's API on 27 October 2026.

If you mean AI inside your existing notes, the price is usually the plan above free, read from each page on 27 October 2026:

• Notion: the free plan has a "Trial of Notion AI"; Business at $20 a member a month adds AI Meeting Notes and Notion Agent.

• Evernote: AI features start on Starter at ₹2,999 a year, and the plans page now lets you "connect Evernote to AI tools (MCP)" such as Claude and ChatGPT.

• Goodnotes: an AI Pass at $9.99 a month on top of Essential or Pro.

• Notability: Plus at $15.99 a year for limited AI quizzes; Pro at $79.99 a year for unlimited transcription and summaries.

• OneNote: Copilot in OneNote comes with Microsoft 365 Personal at ₹689 a month in India.

• Apple Notes: audio recording and transcription in the free app.

Notion's plans on October 27, 2026: AI is a trial on Free and Plus, and part of Business at $20 a member a month.

For a free AI assistant that lives outside your notes, Google's Gemini answers without an account, as we found in our Gemini AI guide.

What is the best note taking app for students?

OneNote for most students, Apple Notes or Goodnotes on an iPad, and Notion for group projects. The best apps for note taking in class share three things: no cap on notes, handwriting and PDF markup on a tablet, and a free plan that stays free. In the Reddit thread Google ranks for this search, the student answer is OneNote with Microsoft's Planner and To Do, and Google Keep for lists.

Students in India get a few extras. Obsidian's pricing page offers students a 40% discount on Sync and Publish. Zoho Notebook's Pro plan is ₹999 a year, or ₹2,499 for three years. The apps to avoid on a student budget are the ones with note caps: Evernote's 50 and Notability's 5.

Best note taking app for Android

Google Keep for quick notes and Samsung Notes if you own a Galaxy, with OneNote for anything longer. Keep's Play India listing on 27 October 2026 shows 100Cr+ downloads and 4.5 stars from 26.4 lakh reviews, and promises that a spoken memo is "automatically transcribed". Samsung Notes shows 100Cr+ downloads and 4.7 from 1.54 crore reviews, and on Samsung's India page it converts handwriting to text and time-stamps notes to audio recordings.

Google Keep on Google Play India, October 27, 2026: a hundred crore downloads and 4.5 stars.

Samsung Notes on Google Play India, October 27, 2026: 4.7 stars from 1.54 crore reviews.

Two Android-specific notes. ColorNote, the simple offline notepad, is rated 4.8 from 39.7 lakh reviews with 10Cr+ downloads on Play India, higher than any of the big names. And the Android versions of the iPad favourites rate lower: Goodnotes 4.3 from 37.9K reviews and Notability 3.9 from 3.57K, per their Play India listings on 27 October 2026.

Best note taking app for iPhone, Mac, Windows and plain text

Apple's Notes app on iPhone and Mac, which The Digital Project Manager's list of August 2026 also calls the best note taking app for Apple users. It is rated 4.8 from 660,351 on the US App Store, has a Hindi interface, and links notes to each other when you type ">>", per its listing. Bear is the prettier Apple-only option: its site lists Bear Pro at $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year after a 7-day trial, and iCloud sync is a Pro feature.

For plain text across every platform, UpNote's site prices Premium at $1.99 a month or $39.99 for life on iOS, Mac, Android, Windows and Linux, with 50 notes free. Simplenote is free in full, per its site, but its iPhone app was last updated in November 2024, per Apple's API, and its Android app is rated 3.9. Craft shows Plus at ₹526.7 a month billed yearly from India.

The best note taking app for Windows is OneNote, which ships with Windows and syncs to the phone apps. Obsidian, Joplin, Notion, UpNote, Simplenote and Goodnotes also have Windows apps, per their sites; Apple Notes, Bear and Notability do not. Of those, only Goodnotes charges by platform, with the same plans on every device.

Best if you want to own your files: Obsidian, Joplin, Logseq and Standard Notes

Obsidian, if you are willing to learn it. Its pricing page on 27 October 2026 reads "Free without limits. No sign-up required. No strings attached." Notes are Markdown files on your device, the apps collect no telemetry, and Sync costs $4 a user a month billed yearly with AES-256 end-to-end encryption. A commercial licence is $50 a year but "you are not required to pay" for it. PCMag calls it the most flexible note-taking app in its testing, and Zapier warns of "a much steeper learning curve".

Obsidian's pricing page on October 27, 2026: the app is free, and only Sync and Publish cost money.

Joplin is the open-source pick. PCMag says "the privacy-respecting Joplin gives you complete ownership of your notes by storing them locally on your device by default". Its Joplin Cloud page lists Basic at €2.99 a month, or €28.69 a year, for 2 GB and sync, and Pro at €5.99 for 30 GB. Its ratings are the lowest of the serious apps, 4.1 from 479 in the US, which fits an app that trades polish for control.

We typed into Logseq's public demo graph at demo.logseq.com on 27 October 2026 without an account. The outliner took a new block, a nested bullet, a wiki link and a tag, and warned that "changes will not be saved until you open a local folder". The desktop app is "free forever for personal use", per logseq.com. The iPhone app, though, was last updated in April 2024, per Apple's API, and we found no Google Play listing.

Our note in Logseq's browser demo on October 27, 2026: a block, a nested bullet, a link and a tag, no account needed.

Standard Notes' demo at standardnotes.com/demo opens the real web app with a sample account. We created a note, typed a title and three lines, and it rendered a bulleted list and a clickable link. The free Standard plan is end-to-end encrypted with daily encrypted email backups, per its plans page. Productivity is $63 a year and Professional $84 a year with 100 GB, shown under a regional-pricing notice for India.

Our note in Standard Notes' demo on October 27, 2026: the full editor, a list and a link, with the demo banner below.

Is Evernote still worth it in 2026?

Only if you already pay for it. Evernote's India plans page on 27 October 2026 lists Free at ₹0 for 50 notes, 1 notebook and 1 device. Starter is ₹249.91 a month, paid as ₹2,999 a year, for 1,000 notes, 20 notebooks, 3 devices and the AI features. Advanced is ₹641.58 a month, paid as ₹7,699 a year, for unlimited notes and devices. Paid plans carry a 7-day trial.

Evernote on Google Play India, October 27, 2026: 3.5 stars from 18.5 lakh reviews, and a "Contains ads" label.

The reviewers Google cites are blunt. Zapier says the free plan "isn't really worth using"; PCMag files Evernote under "best for existing Evernote users". The Android app, now published by Bending Spoons, is rated 3.5 on Play India and "contains ads", while the iPhone app holds 4.4 in both countries. What Evernote still does well is search and capture: the plans page lists AI Transcribe, AI Edit, document search and offline mode, plus the new MCP connection to AI tools.

What note taking apps cost in India

Most of these apps show rupee prices only when the company bills in India; the rest show dollars or euros even from Delhi. Everything below is as displayed on 27 October 2026, from the pages linked in each section above.

Language is the other India question. Of the 20 apps, only four list Hindi among their iPhone app languages in Apple's search API: OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep and Zoho Notebook. Notion, Evernote, Goodnotes, Notability and Obsidian are English-only on iOS, though all of them let you type notes in any language.

How this was checked

Every figure was read on 27 October 2026 from a home broadband connection in Delhi. Ratings, review counts, app sizes, minimum iOS versions, last-update dates and supported languages come from Apple's public search API for India and the US. Android ratings and download bands come from Google Play India. Prices and free-plan limits come from each app's own pricing page as it loaded from India, which is why some are in rupees and others in dollars or euros. The quotations from Zapier, PCMag, Android Police, The Digital Project Manager and Reddit are from the pages Google ranks for this search, read the same day.

We did not sign up for the account-based apps, so OneNote, Notion, Evernote, Goodnotes and the rest are described from their own pages and store listings, not from use. The two hands-on checks were Logseq's public demo graph and Standard Notes' public demo, both used in a browser without an account. The script, its results file and both screenshots are kept with this article's draft. Prices and ratings change, so treat the numbers as a dated snapshot. For how we test AI tools, see our Gemini AI guide.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best note taking app?

Microsoft OneNote for most people: free on every platform with no cap on notes. It was rated 4.7 on the US App Store and 4.6 on Google Play India on 27 October 2026, per Apple's API and Play. Zapier, PCMag and Android Police reach the same verdict.

What is the best free note taking app?

OneNote, with Google Keep, Apple Notes and Simplenote also fully free. Obsidian's pricing page says "Free without limits". Evernote's free plan stops at 50 notes and Notability's at 5.

What is the best note taking app for iPad?

Goodnotes for pencil notes, free for 3 files and then $11.99 a year per its pricing page; Notability is the alternative at $11.99 a year for unlimited notes. Apple Notes is free and 6 MB.

What is the best AI note taking app?

Granola for meeting notes, with a free tier and Business at $14 a user a month per its pricing page. For AI inside your notes, Notion's Business plan at $20 a member a month includes AI Meeting Notes.

What is the best note taking app for students?

OneNote, or Apple Notes and Goodnotes on an iPad. Obsidian gives students 40% off Sync, per its pricing page, and Zoho Notebook Pro is ₹999 a year in India.

Is Evernote free?

Only for 50 notes, 1 notebook and 1 device, per Evernote's plans page on 27 October 2026. Starter costs ₹2,999 a year in India.

Which note taking apps have a Hindi interface?

OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep and Zoho Notebook, per the language lists in Apple's search API on 27 October 2026. The others are English-only apps that accept Hindi text.

Which note taking apps keep notes on my own device?

Obsidian and Logseq store Markdown files locally, Joplin stores notes locally by default, and Standard Notes and Notesnook encrypt them end to end. We tried Logseq and Standard Notes without an account on 27 October 2026.

Does Google Keep have a limit?

No note cap. Keep shares the 15 GB that every Google account gets, per Google One, and 100 GB costs ₹130 a month in India.