Best Note-Taking Apps for iPad in 2026

The problem with picking the best note-taking app? There are sooo many options.

And everyone uses them for different things. A student scribbling down notes mid-lecture has totally different needs than someone trying to research and wrangle a bunch of PDFs.

So I tested the leading note-taking apps with that in mind. I tried out the handwriting, annotated PDFs, dug into the organizational and search tools, and used each one through long study sessions to see what actually holds up.

Here’s what I found.

Top picks at a glance

Goodnotes

• Best for: Students and professionals who want the most complete all-around note-taking experience.
• Pricing: Limited free plan available; $11.99/year for Essential; $35.99/year for Pro; or $35.99 one-time purchase from the App Store for the Essential version per platform.
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Android.
• Links: Download app / View website.

Goodnotes is a powerhouse, and it shows. Handwriting feels natural right out of the gate, and PDF handling is just as strong. You can import lecture slides, mark them up with the Pencil tool, and search through everything later, since Goodnotes includes handwriting recognition that makes your scribbled notes searchable too.

When I needed more room to think, I used the Whiteboard feature, which gives you an infinite canvas for mind maps, diagrams, and brainstorming sessions.

I kept coming back to Goodnotes because of its organization. By default, you can create Notebooks, folders, and subfolders. I tested nesting folders ten layers deep to see if it would break, and it didn’t. That’s a step up from apps like Notability or Apple Notes, where you really only have two, maybe three, layers of hierarchy available.

iCloud syncing and third-party storage support are great to have, and AI-powered tools like Ask Goodnotes is a nice bonus. My one real gripe is the handwriting-to-text conversion. It works, but it’s tedious and took me longer than just retyping it would have.

Pros:

• Highly customizable notebook creation with infinite, nested folders.
• Whiteboard feature for mind maps, diagrams, and brainstorming.
• Favorites section for quick access to any note.
• Cross-platform access means you can easily work on your notes on any device.

Cons:

• Handwriting-to-text conversion works, but it’s a little clunky and tedious.
• Syncing between Mac/iOS/iPadOS and Windows/Android requires a separate subscription for each platform.

Notability

• Best for: Fast, no-setup note-takers who want to open the app and start writing immediately.
• Pricing: Free plan available; $7.99/month or $20/year for Plus; $20/month or $99.99/year for Pro.
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
• Links: Download app / View website.

Notability’s biggest strength is speed. Hit +New, and you’re already writing. That’s a meaningful difference compared to Goodnotes, where you have a setup screen to get through before you can put pen to the page (or Apple Pencil to screen, in this case).

If you need to capture something fast, mid-lecture or mid-thought, Notability gets you there faster than almost any other app on this list.

Multi-note support is something that only Notability has and it lets you open two notes natively and work with them side by side, without relying on iPadOS’s own multitasking tools. Switch to the Pencil tool, and you can draw and sketch just as easily as you can write.

What originally sold me on Notability is its audio syncing, which lets you record audio while you write and syncs the audio to your handwritten notes in real time. You can also get audio transcripts that time-stamp the text of your recordings. While most apps have added audio recording, they don’t all sync to your notes, which is what I find the most helpful.

Handwriting recognition and math conversion round out the feature set, but Notability Learn is the one I’d actually call a differentiator. It auto-generates quizzes and flashcards from your own notes.

Pros:

• New notes open instantly, with zero setup required.
• Native split-screen multi-note support for working side by side.
• Audio recording syncs with handwritten notes and generates timestamped transcripts.
• Notability Learn offers AI summaries, quizzes, and flashcards.

Cons:

• No iCloud sync. Notability uses its own Notability Cloud instead.
• Free plan has a monthly edit limit, but Notability doesn’t tell you what that number is.

Curious how Goodnotes and Notability stack up directly? We put them head-to-head here.

Apple Notes

• Best for: Casual users who want a free, built-in option with no learning curve.
• Pricing: Free!
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac. Accessible on Windows or PC via iCloud.com.
• Links: Download app / View website.

Apple Notes comes preinstalled on every Apple device, so there’s nothing to download and nothing to pay for. On the iPad, handwriting is solid, with a set of pen options (monoline, fountain, watercolor, plus pencil, marker, and crayon). If you want to convert your handwriting to text, Scribble can handle that, too.

PDF functionality is more limited than in most dedicated note-taking apps, though. Imported files are treated more like attachments than as part of your notes. If you want to annotate something, you have to open the file, mark it up with Markup tools, and manually copy anything you need back into the note body. It works, but it’s a few extra steps every time.

Apple Notes’ organization surprised me. Smart Folders let you tag notes with hashtags, which sorts them automatically, and includes built-in OCR that makes handwritten notes, images, and scanned documents searchable.

Quick Notes is another great feature that lets you quickly jot down a thought or save something from the web without even opening the app. They show up in their own folder so that they’re easy to find later. Apple Notes is also one of the few note-taking apps that does tables and interactive checklists well.

If you’re a heavy organizer or live in PDFs, you’ll outgrow this fast, but for jotting things down and finding them later, free is hard to beat.

Pros:

• Completely free with no in-app purchases.
• Smart Folders sort tagged notes automatically.
• Quick Notes let you capture something fast from anywhere.

Cons:

• PDFs and images are treated as attachments, so annotating requires opening up the Markup tool inside the file itself.
• Lacks many customization features, including the ability to create templates or create deeply nested organizational structures.
• Handwriting and typed text stay in separate blocks rather than mixing freely.

MarginNote

• Best for: Research-heavy users who want to turn PDFs into mind maps and flashcards.
• Pricing: Free (reader-only) version available; $12.99 one-time purchase for Pro (iPad & iPhone only); $51.99 one-time purchase for Max (adds Mac support, AI tools, and OCR).
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
• Links: Download app / View website.

The dedicated PDF reading view is pretty standard. You can highlight, annotate, and pull excerpts. Study mode is what I found to be MarginNote’s most useful feature.

In Study mode, your document sits on one side of the screen, and a mind map workspace sits on the other. Anything that you’ve marked (called emphasized in the app) while reading can be automatically organized into that map, based on the document’s table of contents.

It’s a more rigid system than a free-form tool, which took some getting used to. But once I leaned into the structure instead of fighting it, dense material got easier to keep track of.

Review mode goes even further. You can auto-generate flashcards straight from your mind map nodes (instead of creating them one by one) and study everything inside the same app, which is really convenient.

A built-in web browser and the ability to attach multiple documents to a single project add even more utility. You can take notes in MarginNote, but it’s more of a research and study tool than anything else. It’s a steep learning curve, but research-heavy users will find it pays off fast.

Pros:

• Auto Add to MindMap lets you organize excerpts without a ton of dragging and dropping.
• Auto-generates flashcards directly from your mind map nodes.
• One-time purchase option, with Max unlocking Mac support and OCR.

Cons:

• Free version is reader-only, with no real annotation or markup.
• Steep learning curve, since the interface changes depending on what you’re doing.

LiquidText

• Best for: Researchers who want a streamlined, flexible workspace.
• Pricing: Free plan available; $79.99 for Pro (one-time purchase per platform); $9.99/month for LIVE; $179.88/year for LIVE Unlimited.
• Note: LIVE & LIVE Unlimited are both cloud-based subscriptions, and the subscription covers LiquidText on all devices.
• Platform: Available for iPad, Mac, and Windows 10.
• Links: Download app / View website.

LiquidText is built for thinking through documents. Open a PDF, and your screen splits in half, with the document on one side and an infinite workspace on the other. As you read, you pull excerpts straight out of the text and drag them into that workspace, where they become cards that you can group, tag, color-code, and connect with lines (mind mapping) to build out your ideas.

There’s also a feature called HighlightView that lets you pinch the document down so only your highlighted text is visible. It’s a fast way to review the important parts without scrolling back through the whole document.

LiquidText manages to be both flexible and simple. (Most apps that nail one tend to sacrifice the other.) You can view and compare up to three documents at once, and Pro unlocks multiple workspaces within a single project, so you can keep separate lines of thinking organized without ever switching modes or screens.

The newer AI features are a nice addition, too. Auto-Cite suggests a citation based on whatever you’re reading, and Ask AI lets you ask questions about your document without leaving the app. Between LiquidText and MarginNote, LiquidText is the one I reach for when I want flexibility over structure.

Pros:

• Infinite workspace for organizing excerpts, comments, and notes.
• Multiple documents can live in a single workspace, so related research stays together.
• Ability to squeeze and expand documents during research makes critical details much easier to parse and compare.

Cons:

• Easy to lose track of snippets in the workspace if you don’t stay organized.
• Inking tools (handwriting, drawing) require LiquidText Pro.
• No built-in flashcard system like MarginNote.

Torn between the two PDF-and-research tools? Here’s how MarginNote and LiguidText compare.

Noteshelf

• Best for: Creators who want expressive tools and deep visual customization.
• Pricing: Limited free plan available; $7.99/week, $9.99/month, or $29.99/year for the full iOS/iPadOS/macOS version. Separate pricing for Android ($9.99) and Windows ($7.99).
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, Mac, Windows, and Android.
• Links: Download app / View website.

Noteshelf has one of the best handwriting feels on this list. You get four pressure-sensitive pen styles (ball, felt, fountain, and pencil), and you can change the width and color to suit your needs. There’s also a Tape tool with solid colors and patterns for decorating or covering/uncovering notes. The toolbar is customizable, so your favorite colors and tools are always within reach.

Working with PDFs is easy, too, with built-in OCR that makes scanned documents, handwritten notes, and imported PDFs all searchable and color-coded bookmarks. Using these, you can even build a table of contents for PDFs that don’t already have one.

I love being able to customize my notes, which is one reason that Noteshelf is one of my top choices. Every note is technically its own notebook, and you can give each one a cover. There are pre-made options, but you can also create your own and even use your own photos or ones from Unsplash. You can also choose from hundreds of page templates, from digital planners to study layouts and everything in between.

The Zoom Box is one of the better magnification interfaces out there. When you need to write smaller text or get a close-up of your existing notes, it’s right there without getting in the way.

It also has a built-in web clipper that lets you drag content straight from a browser into your notebook, and Noteshelf AI, which can summarize, outline, or even generate notes in your approximate handwriting.

Pros:

• Advanced customization with page templates, notebook covers, and tools.
• Zoom Box keeps the tool interface right in the magnification bar.
• Customizable Toolbar lets you have just the tools you need.
• Multi-device compatibility with all Mac devices (including Apple Watch), Windows, and Android devices.

Cons:

• Free version only gives you three notebooks to use.
• Moving notes isn’t a simple process, making reorganizing your notes a bit of a pain.
• Not cross-platform compatible. You can’t sync across Mac devices to Android or Windows.

MyScript Notes (Formerly Nebo)

• Best for: Note-takers who want to freely mix handwriting and typed text in the same notebook, even in the same sentence, without switching modes.
• Pricing: Free 7-day trial; $1.99/month, $7.99/year, or $24.99 one-time purchase for the full app.
• Platform: Available on iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Android.
• Links: Download app / View website.

MyScript Notes (formerly Nebo) solves a problem that most note-taking apps never really address, which is letting handwriting and typed text live on the same page without feeling like two separate things.

You can switch between the keyboard and your Apple Pencil mid-thought, and the app blends both seamlessly, even within a single sentence. And this is in the regular Document pages. The app also includes Board pages that act as a whiteboard if you want to create mind maps or brainstorm separately.

If you’re handwriting your notes, a live conversion preview shows exactly how the app is reading your strokes as you write, so you can fix a misread letter before it ever becomes a typo and easily convert your handwriting to text when you’re done. The Interactive Ink technology reads cursive and sloppy handwriting with startling accuracy, so you don’t have to worry too much about neatness.

PDF handling is clean. Import a file, mark it up with the Pen or Highlighter tool, and the Highlighter even snaps to a straight line behind text automatically, a small touch most apps don’t bother with. The weak spot here is organization, with notes inside folders, which sit inside collections, and that’s as deep as it goes. If you build large note libraries, you’ll need to be thoughtful about naming things.

Gestures also speed things up throughout. Underline a line twice for a title, draw a box around a word to highlight it, or scratch out text to erase it (and that’s just a few of the formatting gestures). These work whether you’re typing or handwriting, and they make editing on the fly feel faster than using the toolbar.

It can also convert and calculate math equations automatically, and any diagrams that you create stay editable when pasted into PowerPoint or Keynote. The biggest selling point, in my opinion, is that a single purchase covers up to 10 devices across any platform. You won’t find that anywhere else.

Pros:

• Handwriting and typed text mix freely on the same page, even mid-sentence.
• One purchase covers up to 10 devices across iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Windows, and Android. (This is something you won’t see in any other app.)
• Gesture shortcuts work on both handwriting and typed text, making editing quick and easy.
• Math equations and diagrams convert to text and stay editable in other apps.

Cons:

• Only a three-level hierarchy, which can feel cramped for heavy organizers.
• No templates or customization options, like you’d find in Goodnotes and Noteshelf.
• Requires a MyScript account for cross-device sync, on top of optional iCloud, Drive, or Dropbox backup.

CollaNote

• Best for: Study groups and teams who want to write, draw, and annotate on the same note together in real time.
• Pricing: Free version available; $13.90 one-time purchase for Premium.
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, and Mac.
• Links: Download app / View website.

CollaNote offers real-time collaboration, which is something that almost none of the other apps on this list can do. Multiple people can write, draw, and annotate on the same note at once, watching each other’s changes appear live. That makes it a natural fit for study groups splitting up reading notes or teams marking up a shared document.

Unfortunately, handwriting just feels serviceable rather than exceptional. You do get 25 or so pens and brushes, including some unique options like vector pens and 3D brushes, and there’s a stabilizer for smoother strokes. But the writing experience doesn’t quite match the polish of powerhouses like Goodnotes and Notability.

That said, PDF functionality is actually more capable than you might expect. You can import and mark up PDFs, slides, and documents, and a built-in scanner digitizes physical pages straight into a note.

Strip away the writing experience, though, and the extras are what make this app worth a look. An AI calculator solves handwritten equations, AI tools generate shapes and stickers from a prompt, and a translator covers more than 90 languages. On top of that, it also has flashcard creation and built-in planner templates. None of those extras make up for the handwriting feel if that’s your top priority, but for study groups specifically, the collaboration feature might be the deciding factor anyway.

Pros:

• Real-time collaboration lets multiple people annotate the same note simultaneously.
• Strong free tier with an affordable one-time price for lifetime access.
• Robust tool set with varied and unique pens, brushes, and tools.

Cons:

• Handwriting doesn’t feel as good as apps like Goodnotes and Notability, with a more pixelated, less refined ink experience.
• Limited to Apple devices only.
• Interface can feel cluttered and busy for users who prefer something simple.

Evernote

• Best for: Note-takers and professionals who want a full productivity system built around their notes.
• Pricing: Limited free plan; $14.99/month or $99.99/year for Starter; $24.99/month or $249.99/year for Advanced; Professional plans available.
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC, Android, and Linux.
• Links: Download app / View website.

Evernote treats note-taking as one piece of a bigger productivity puzzle. Open the app, and you land on a customizable dashboard with widgets for recent notes, a scratch pad, and content captured through the Web Clipper, which can pull full articles, simplified text, screenshots, or bookmarks straight from a browser. That clipper, along with searchable text inside PDFs and image files, is the app's signature feature, and it’s especially useful for anyone doing heavy research.

If you like to handwrite your notes, this likely isn’t the app for you because handwriting takes a back seat to everything else. Notes are structured almost like a Word document, with little to no movement ability, and if you want to write by hand, you have to switch to Sketch Mode. When you’re done, your handwriting gets saved as a static image rather than remaining editable.

The app does offer 50+ templates in categories for work, school, and personal use, but most are designed for typing. PDF markup is available and works well, though you’ll need a paid plan to use it.

Organization works through Stacks, Notebooks, and Notes, which isn’t a deep structure, and I’ll admit I found myself fighting it when I had too many overlapping projects going. But Evernote makes up for it with tagging and OCR search, so things are still pretty easy to find. It also includes audio recording features. If you’re just as concerned with your productivity as you are with your notes, Evernote earns its keep.

Pros:

• A dedicated Task section keeps your to-do list right alongside your notes.
• Web Clipper captures information from your desktop for later use.
• Customizable dashboard with productivity widgets creates more of a command center to stay on top of your work.
• Cross-platform compatibility and real-time syncing allow you to work anywhere, anytime.

Cons:

• Sketch mode is the only place you can handwrite, which can be annoying if you don’t like typing out your notes.
• Free plan caps monthly uploads and only allows you to use one device.

Microsoft OneNote

• Best for: Students and note-takers who want a free, flexible canvas where text, ink, and media can sit anywhere on the page.
• Pricing: Free!
• Note: You can get 100GB of storage for $1.99/month or purchase Microsoft 365 Personal with 1 TB of storage for $9.99/month or $99.99/year. (You also get the whole Microsoft suite and integrations.)
• Platform: Available for iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC, and Android.
• Links: Download app / View website.

OneNote and Evernote both lean keyboard-first. The difference is that OneNote doesn’t make handwriting feel like an afterthought, so you don’t have to switch modes or move to a different section to use it. OneNote treats every page like a whiteboard rather than a fixed sheet of paper. Text boxes, images, and handwriting can go anywhere on the page, be layered, and mix freely. It’s one of the more freeform layouts, which gives you a lot of flexibility in your notes.

Tap into the Draw tab at the top of the screen, and you get a pen, highlighter, eraser, and shape tool, plus an Ink Color Selector with some fun options, like galaxy, marble, and glitter colors. You won’t find anything like this in any other note-taking app on the list.

PDF and document handling are pretty generous for a free app. You can insert PDFs, embed playable media, capture audio anywhere in a note, and even record video (though only on the desktop). A built-in Math Assistant and a web clipper to capture content from the internet are the other standout features worth knowing about.

The navigation style is built on cascading sidebars, rather than a homepage, which can mean more taps than expected to get to a specific note. The 5GB free storage cap is the only real catch.

Pros:

• Freeform layout lets you mix handwriting, text, and media anywhere on the page.
• Ink Color Selector offers options like galaxy, marble, and glitter colors.
• Entirely free, including all features and unlimited devices.

Cons:

• Opens to the last screen used, which can be annoying if you’d like to start a new note or find a different note.
• Only backs up to its own servers. You can’t create a backup to any other cloud service.
• Only 5GB of storage is included on the free plan, which might not be enough if you plan to take a lot of notes.

Both Evernote and OneNote straddle the line between a note-taking tool and a productivity tool. See how the two actually compare.

Why your note‑taking app is only 50% of the solution

By now, you’ve probably noticed something. There isn’t one perfect note-taking app.

Pick whichever one matches how you work. Goodnotes for organization, or Notability if you need speed. MarginNote turns a stack of PDFs into something like a study guide. And I still think Apple Notes is underrated if you just want free and simple.

But no matter which app you choose, you’re still writing on glass.

Glass is slippery. Your Apple Pencil glides with almost no resistance, so your brain ends up making tiny corrections to compensate. You won’t notice in the first 20 minutes. You’ll notice it in an hour, when your hand is tired and your writing has gotten sloppy.

There’s also a retention cost here. The physical act of forming letters, slowly, with resistance, helps you remember what you wrote. Glass speeds that up in a way that works against you.

The app you choose shapes how you organize and find your notes later. The surface shapes how long you can sit there and write them in the first place.

Surface friction matters

I’ve used a Paperlike on my iPad for years, so I’m not exactly an unbiased judge of bare glass anymore. But I hear about the adjustment constantly. Students switch to a textured screen protector after years on glass, and they almost always describe the same thing: a grip that was clenched tighter than it needed to be, handwriting that got sloppier the longer they wrote, or a hand tiring out faster than it ever did when writing on paper.

The moment Paperlike changed everything for me was when my Apple Pencil finally felt controlled instead of slippery. It honestly felt like writing in my real notebook again. During university, I spent hours taking digital notes, and switching from a clear glass protector to Paperlike made my handwriting more precise and comfortable, even during long study sessions.

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That tracks with how writing on paper works. When you write on it, you get feedback with every stroke. Your pen slows down just enough to give you control, and your brain uses that resistance to guide your hand without you ever thinking about it.

Take that feedback away, and your body compensates in ways that aren’t great for you. Your grip tightens. Your hand and wrist end up doing the stabilizing work that the surface should be doing instead. There’s also a mental cost. Without tactile feedback, part of your brain stays busy just controlling the pen instead of thinking about what you’re writing.

A tactile, paper-feel surface won’t fix bad posture or a worn-out Pencil tip. But it adds real friction back to your screen, so your hand isn’t fighting the glass to keep your strokes steady.

Building the full setup

No app alone makes the perfect setup. It’s the whole system around it.

Start with the app that fits your workflow. That’s the easy half, even with all the choices to sort through. Then think about the physical side.

A paper-feel screen protector (*wink* Paperlike *wink*) adds the resistance glass doesn’t have, so your Apple Pencil drags instead of sliding, more like an actual pen than a stylus skating across the screen. If fatigue is still an issue once you’ve got that friction back, a pencil grip adds comfort and stability on top of it. And if you want your iPad to feel less like a device and more like a notebook, a Folio Case gets you there.

Put together, this is what turns any of the apps above from something that was fine for quick notes into something that you can actually sit with for a full study session, deep work block, or research sprint, without your hand giving out partway through.

Most of the apps on this list offer free versions or trials, so there’s nothing stopping you from experimenting until you find the combination that clicks. The app is the easy decision. The setup around it is what determines whether you’ll still be using it in six months.