Best Free Note-Taking Tools in 2026

The AI notepad that transforms raw meeting notes into actionable insights.

Granola is an AI-powered notepad designed to help individuals and teams, particularly product teams, get more value from their meetings. It transcribes computer audio directly, eliminating the need for invasive meeting bots, and allows users to take their own notes during calls. After a meeting, Granola uses advanced AI models to enhance these raw notes, extracting key themes, insights, action items, and even generating follow-up emails or summaries. The tool is particularly beneficial for product teams, enabling them to turn customer conversations into actionable product insights, validate roadmap decisions, and build a searchable library of user research. It integrates with popular tools like Notion, Slack, HubSpot, and Zapier, streamlining workflows and ensuring that insights are easily shared and acted upon across different departments. Granola aims to help users stay present in meetings while ensuring no critical information is missed, ultimately boosting productivity and decision-making.

Unify work and personal schedules with integrated deadlines and scheduling links

4.6/5 on G2 · 13,835 ratings, Sep 2026

Notion Calendar is a beautifully designed calendar app that unifies work and personal schedules. Integrated with Notion, it shows project deadlines alongside events, offers built-in scheduling links, and supports multi-timezone collaboration-all with a fast, keyboard-driven interface.

AI notetaker that summarizes your meetings so you can focus on the conversation.

4.9/5 across G2 and Trustpilot · 7,187 ratings, Sep 2026

Fathom is an AI notetaker that automatically transcribes, summarizes, and extracts action items from your virtual meetings. It aims to eliminate the need for manual note-taking, allowing users to stay fully present during conversations. The tool provides shockingly accurate transcripts, instant summaries, and action items, which are delivered directly to your inbox. Fathom integrates seamlessly with popular communication and productivity tools like Slack, Salesforce, HubSpot, Notion, and Asana, automatically syncing meeting notes, insights, and action items. It also features an "Ask Fathom" capability, allowing users to search meeting content and get customizable AI summaries tailored to their team's workflow. This helps teams move work forward faster by reducing time spent on searching and follow-up. Fathom is designed for various teams including sales, marketing, operations, HR, and product & engineering, helping them improve collaboration, track progress, and gain actionable insights from every meeting.

The original note-taking app, still kicking after all these years

4.4/5 across G2 and Capterra · 10,296 ratings, Sep 2026

Evernote was the note-taking app that defined the category. Capture notes, clip web pages, organize with notebooks and tags-the original cross-platform note storage. The web clipper remains excellent. Search finds notes reliably. The platform has years of notes for loyal users. Long-time users keep using Evernote for the accumulated value of years of stored notes and familiar workflows.

Transform meetings into productive sessions with clear outcomes

4.7/5 on G2 · 2,438 ratings, Sep 2026

Fellow is meeting management software that helps teams have more productive meetings. AI-generated meeting agendas from past discussions. Collaborative note-taking during meetings. Action items automatically tracked and followed up. Integrates with Google Calendar, Zoom, and Slack. Meeting analytics show how you spend your time. Transform meetings from time-wasters into productive sessions with clear outcomes.

Digital notebook for organizing everything

4.0/5 across G2, Capterra and Trustpilot · 3,864 ratings, Sep 2026

Microsoft OneNote is a free-form digital notebook that lets you capture notes, drawings, screenshots, and audio recordings in organized notebooks. Part of Microsoft 365, OneNote syncs across all devices and integrates deeply with other Microsoft products like Outlook, Teams, and Word. The canvas-based interface allows placing content anywhere on a page, making it great for brainstorming and visual note-taking. OneNote is particularly strong in education and enterprise environments where Microsoft ecosystem is prevalent.

Connect team knowledge and automate busywork with always-on AI agents

4.5/5 across PeerSpot and Capterra · 1,326 ratings, Oct 2026

Notion is an all-in-one AI workspace that combines docs, databases, wikis, and project management with powerful AI agents and automations. Teams can capture knowledge through block-based docs, databases, AI meeting notes, and forms; find answers instantly with enterprise search across connected tools; and automate busywork using custom agents that run 24/7. It supports real-time collaboration, data syncs from Salesforce and Jira, and offers rich views like Kanban, Gantt, and dashboards. Trusted by over 100 million users and more than half of Fortune 100 companies, Notion provides enterprise-grade security, SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, audit logs, granular permissions, agent governance, and compliance with GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and BSI C5. It also offers robust data protection with AES-256 encryption at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit, no training on customer data by default, and data residency options on Enterprise plans. The platform integrates deeply with Slack, Jira, Figma, GitHub, and more, and supports API, MCP, and agent orchestration for connecting custom AI tools.

AI meeting transcription and search

4.7/5 on G2 · 753 ratings, Sep 2026

Fireflies.ai transcribes meetings and extracts insights. Automatic call recording, AI transcription, and smart summaries-meeting content captured and made searchable. Integration with major meeting platforms is automatic. The search finds topics across conversations. Action items surface automatically. Busy professionals use Fireflies to never lose meeting context and always find what was discussed.

AI meeting notes and transcription

4.4/5 across G2 and Capterra · 608 ratings, Sep 2026

Otter.ai is an AI-powered meeting assistant that automatically transcribes, summarizes, and extracts action items from your meetings. With up to 95% accuracy, it works seamlessly with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, joining your meetings as a participant to capture everything. Beyond transcription, Otter uses AI to generate summaries, identify key topics, and assign action items to team members. The AI Chat feature lets you query past conversations-ask "What did we decide about the Q4 budget?" and get instant answers. With integrations to Salesforce, HubSpot, Slack, and Notion, Otter fits into existing workflows. Used by major companies including Salesforce, Harvard, Amazon, and IBM, it is consistently rated as one of the most accurate transcription tools available.

AI meeting recorder for sales and product

4.7/5 on G2 · 537 ratings, Sep 2026

tl;dv records and transcribes meetings so you never have to take notes again. AI generates summaries with key moments and action items. Timestamp and clip important parts for easy sharing. Search across all your meeting recordings. Integrates with Google Meet, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. Never say 'can you repeat that?' again.

Ambient AI for clinical notes and EHR dictation

4.5/5 on G2 · 700 ratings, Aug 2026

Nabla is an ambient clinical AI assistant used by health systems to capture the patient-clinician conversation and generate structured notes. It also offers clinical-grade dictation inside Epic and other major EHRs, plus E/M and ICD-10 coding suggestions that stay under the clinician. Nabla cites a large number of health organizations, clinicians, and patient encounters. HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR are listed. Partners can embed via Nabla Connect or an API. A free trial is on the site; enterprise rollouts are quote-only.

Organize your notes, tasks, and knowledge in one connected workspace.

4.4/5 across SourceForge and Capterra · 693 ratings, Sep 2026

Clover is an all-in-one workspace designed to help individuals and teams capture, organize, and connect their notes, tasks, and knowledge. It combines the flexibility of a document editor with the structure of a database, allowing users to create rich, interconnected content. Whether you're brainstorming ideas, managing projects, or building a personal knowledge base, Clover provides tools for seamless organization and retrieval. It's ideal for students, professionals, and teams who need a centralized hub for their information. By integrating notes, tasks, and a powerful search function, Clover aims to reduce context switching and improve productivity, making it easier to find what you need when you need it.

Mind mapping and brainstorming

4.5/5 across G2 and Capterra · 585 ratings, Sep 2026

XMind is a mind mapping and brainstorming application available on desktop (Mac, Windows, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android). It supports multiple diagram types including mind maps, org charts, tree charts, fishbone diagrams, and timelines. The Premium tier adds real-time collaboration, cloud sync, and an AI copilot for brainstorming assistance. XMind is popular with students, professionals, and teams who need visual thinking tools for planning, note-taking, and idea organization.

Collaborative notebooks for data analysis, visualization, and machine learning.

4.5/5 on G2 · 535 ratings, Mar 2026

Noteable is a collaborative notebook platform designed for data teams to explore, analyze, and visualize data, build models, and share insights. It provides a unified workspace where data scientists, analysts, and engineers can work together on Python, SQL, and R notebooks. The platform supports real-time collaboration, version control, and integrates with various data sources and tools. Noteable aims to streamline the data workflow by offering an environment that combines coding, markdown, and interactive outputs. It's built for teams that need to iterate quickly on data projects, ensure reproducibility, and effectively communicate their findings across the organization. The platform is suitable for a range of tasks from ad-hoc data exploration to developing and deploying machine learning models. Key benefits include enhanced team productivity through shared workspaces, simplified data access and integration, and improved decision-making by making data insights more accessible and understandable. It caters to organizations looking to foster a data-driven culture and empower their teams with powerful, yet easy-to-use, analytical tools.

Collect, reflect, and connect your best ideas to shape your mind.

4.4/5 on G2 · 595 ratings, Oct 2026

Napkin is an iPhone app designed to help users easily collect and reflect upon their best ideas, quotes, and insights. It provides a safe and calm space to store valuable text-based information, preventing it from getting lost in the daily deluge of digital content. Users can add ideas by sharing text from other apps, scanning from books, dictating, or typing. The app then curates a personal flow of these collected ideas, offering moments of reflection. A personal AI understands the ideas deeply and suggests related topics, fostering connections between concepts and deepening knowledge. This process aims to improve an individual's Sense of Coherence, leading to increased focus, calmness, and mental well-being. Napkin is ideal for individuals seeking to cultivate a habit of intentional reflection and leverage their collected wisdom to navigate the world more effectively.