The Best Note-Taking Apps for 2025

Even as a free app, OneNote stands out as the best note-taking app we’ve tested. It has every feature you could want, from organizational structure to cross-platform syncing to voice notes and optical character recognition (OCR). It also comes with the best web clipping tool we’ve seen. OneNote is the first application most people should consider when looking for a note-taking app, earning it our Editors’ Choice award. 

Just about anyone. Note-taking is intensely personal, and no application will work for everyone, but Microsoft OneNote comes close. It’s easy to use, doesn’t skimp on features, and is usable on every major operating system.

The open-source Joplin is as close to a perfect note-taking app as you can get if you’re looking for something relatively simple. It’s completely free and stores your notes locally on your computer if you choose—though you can pay to use Joplin’s cloud storage if you prefer. Notes you take in Joplin are yours in the same way that notes you take in a paper notebook are. This approach, until recently, had a downside: a lack of collaboration tools. That’s changed, as Joplin now has notebook sharing for those willing to pay.

Joplin is for anyone who wants a straightforward app for taking notes and complete control and ownership over their data. Granted, Joplin can’t match OneNote for features, but OneNote doesn’t let you use the app on Mac, Android, or iPhone without syncing to OneDrive.

Obsidian is the most flexible note-taking app we tested. It has hundreds of user-built plug-ins and themes and extensive customization options, so you can make it look and act exactly the way you want. It also stores files locally with an optional subscription to enable syncing. 

Obsidian is a note-taking app for power users with rich customization options, plug-ins galore, and the ability to connect notes in a network-like structure. If you need a note-taking system to work precisely how you want and don’t mind taking the time to get it there, Obsidian is the application you should check out first.

Built by a two-person team, UpNote feels every bit as polished as the best note-taking apps from huge corporations—all without the need for an ongoing subscription. This app has some downsides, mainly around the size of files you can upload and a few missing features, but UpNote is an otherwise worthy note-taking app.

UpNote is the app to get if you are looking for a good value. It isn’t the most feature-filled note-taking application on the market, but it’s extremely usable for a low price.

Bear is a beautiful note-taking app for iPads, iPhones, and Macs. Although the application seems very simple, it has a few advanced features, such as OCR (which allows you to search for text in images) and a web clipper (which allows you to save web page content to the app), that make it a viable alternative to Apple Notes and even OneNote for some. 

Bear is a note-taking app for Apple users whose needs fall between basic and advanced. It syncs using iCloud—and there are no other options. There’s no version of Bear for Windows, Android, and Linux, which limits its appeal, though a web version is in the works, according to the company that makes the app.

Evernote once dominated the note-taking space. That’s not true anymore, but it’s still a powerful note-taking application. Evernote offers features like AI-enabled plain language search, OCR, and voice notes. Its problems are a limited free version and extremely expensive paid plans. 

The only people we think should use Evernote are those who already use it. There’s no compelling reason to create an Evernote account if you don’t have one already. An extremely limited free version and the astronomical pricing of the paid version make it impossible to recommend to new users. But if you have a decade’s worth of notes living inside Evernote and rely on its unique features, quitting might not be your best option.

A lot of note-taking apps pile on features. Not Simplenote. This application embodies the “do one thing well” mantra. With Simplenote, you write text notes, sync them to other devices, and that’s basically it. Simplenote is completely free, includes syncing, and has apps for every major platform.

SimpleNote is ideal if you don’t need to attach files to your notes or use other advanced features. It’s also easy to get started with because it’s simple and free.

Picture Google Keep as a fridge covered in sticky notes. This note-taking app is for writing down ideas quickly and keeping them haphazardly assembled. There’s nothing wrong with sticky notes, and Keep offers more than a few interesting tricks, though it has a subpar web clipper and lacks some basic features like offline desktop access and desktop apps.

Google Keep is what you should use if you need a place to quickly write down an idea that you are likely to reference within a few days or plan to delete or hide those old notes soon after. This app doesn’t have tools for organizing information in a way that makes it long-lasting.

Notion’s roots are as a note-taking app, but it’s designed to support team collaboration—especially if your team works in software development. The app, its templates, and its help tools are loaded with Silicon Valley jargon. In any event, you can use Notion to not only manage just notes and information but also to create databases from them.

If everything about Notion we described so far sounds complicated, that’s because it is for the majority of people. However, if you need a collaborative tool to turn notes and thoughts into sharable information and database sets to use to run your software company, then Notion might be right for you and your team.