Best Note-Taking Apps for Students in 2026

TL;DR

Short answer: Notion is the best note-taking app for students in 2026, a free workspace for classes and readings that stays free for verified students on Plus, otherwise $10/mo/member billed annually. RemNote and Anki matter more once exam season starts: RemNote bakes spaced-repetition flashcards into outlined notes from $8/mo, and Anki is the free memorization drill students keep for years. OneNote and Apple Notes cost nothing for casual notes. GoodNotes suits handwritten lecture capture on an iPad from $11.99/yr, and NotebookLM turns readings into a grounded study guide for free. Obsidian, Evernote, and Google Keep round out linked notes, archiving, and quick capture.

10 tools compared on free-tier limits, exam-prep features, and price, checked on vendor pages in September 2026.

Louis Corneloup Founder, Toolradar & Dupple · 720K+ readers·Updated Sep 2026

As featured in

187 Note-Taking tools tracked

A student choosing between these 10 tools is really choosing between three different jobs: organizing a semester's worth of classes and deadlines, capturing what a professor says in real time, and retaining it long enough to pass the exam. Notion and OneNote solve the first job, a free digital binder that survives four years of classes. GoodNotes, Apple Notes, and Google Keep solve the second, catching a lecture or a quick reminder before it disappears. Anki and RemNote solve the third, the one most listicles skip: turning notes into something a student's brain actually keeps past finals week.

This ranking sits beside three sibling Toolradar guides on the same category: Best Note-Taking Apps ranks the category for every buyer, not students specifically; Best Note-Taking Apps for iPad goes deeper on Apple Pencil handwriting; and Best AI Note-Taking Apps ranks AI meeting-transcription tools a student would rarely need. For the typed-notes fork specifically, Notion vs Obsidian compares the two head to head. Dupple's note-taking apps roundup covers the same category independently, for a general productivity reader rather than a student budget.

Toolradar data: of the 187 note-taking tools in our directory, 82% can be opened on a free or freemium plan (40 free and 114 freemium), and 33 are paid only, a 18% share. That free-heavy split matters more for a student budget than for any other buyer in this category: seven picks below run a real class schedule on a $0 plan.

Methodology: these 10 were ranked for a student weighing class organization, lecture capture, and exam retention against price, out of the 187 tools in the note-taking category. Prices were verified on vendor pages in September 2026. No vendor paid for a slot in this order.

Top Picks

Picked by editorial review, informed by G2 and Capterra review volume and rating and by media mentions, the signals behind our category rankings. How we rate

Best Note-Taking Apps for Students compared: starting price, rating and best use, as of September 2026
Tool	Starting price	Rating	Best for
Notion	Free; Plus $10/mo/member	3.5407 reviews	Students who want one tool for class notes, project databases, and a shared calendar.
RemNote	Free; Pro $8/mo	n/a	Students who want their class notes to double as exam flashcards without exporting to a separate app.
Anki	Free; AnkiMobile $24.99 one-time	n/a	Any student memorizing vocabulary, formulas, or med-school-style volumes of recall-based material.
OneNote	Free; M365 from $99.99/yr	4.03,864 reviews	Students already using Microsoft 365 through their school who want a free notebook across every device.
GoodNotes	Free; Essential $11.99/yr	4.4263 reviews	Students who annotate slide decks and textbooks by hand and want the closest thing to a real notebook.
NotebookLM	Free	n/a	Students who need to turn a stack of PDFs and lecture slides into a study guide with real citations.
Obsidian	Free; Sync add-on $4/mo	4.512 reviews	Research-heavy majors who want markdown notes stored as local files and linked into a personal wiki.
Evernote	Free; Starter $8.25/mo	4.410,296 reviews	Students who save articles and research PDFs more than they write freeform notes.
Apple Notes	Free; iCloud+ from $0.99/mo	4.114 reviews	Students who want free notes and light handwriting without installing or paying for anything.
Google Keep	Free	n/a	Students who need to capture a short note or to-do list in seconds, tied to their Google account.

Notion

Top Pick

2.5 on Trustpilot (287 reviews)
4.4 on TrustRadius (85 reviews)
4.1 on PeerSpot (35 reviews)

Students who want one tool for class notes, project databases, and a shared calendar.

+Free covers unlimited pages and blocks for a single student, with a trial of Notion AI and Notion Calendar included.

+Plus, at the featured rate above, is free for a verified student with a school email address, removing the price entirely for most undergrads.

+Databases link a reading list, a project tracker, and a class schedule together, something a plain notes app cannot do.

−There is no native handwriting canvas anywhere in Notion's plans; a Pencil stroke only feeds Scribble, which converts it to typed text.

−The database-heavy structure has a learning curve that a student who just wants a plain notebook does not need to climb.

Good value

Notion is the Swiss army knife of productivity, docs, wikis, databases, project management, and now AI in one tool.

Watch out

Free plan limits file uploads to 5MB per file, fine for text but impossible for design files, videos, or large PDFs. Upgrading to Plus solely for file uploads is common

See Notion alternatives →

RemNote

3.5 on G2 (1 reviews)

Students who want their class notes to double as exam flashcards without exporting to a separate app.

+Free includes unlimited notes and flashcards, with 3 annotated PDFs and 5 image occlusion cards to try the workflow before paying.

+Pro, at the featured rate above, adds PDF annotation, an exam-date scheduler, and 1,000 monthly AI credits for a full-semester workflow.

+Turning any note into a flashcard takes one keystroke, closer to how a student actually studies than a separate deck-building tool.

−Pro with AI costs more than double Pro for lecture recording and AI grading, features many students will not use every week.

−The outlining interface asks for more setup time upfront than a plain notes app like Apple Notes or Google Keep.

Good value

RemNote's pricing is fair, especially considering the robust free tier.

See RemNote alternatives →

Anki

Any student memorizing vocabulary, formulas, or med-school-style volumes of recall-based material.

+Desktop, AnkiWeb, and AnkiDroid are entirely free, with community-shared decks available for common courses and languages.

+The spaced-repetition algorithm is open and well documented, and thousands of students in medicine and language learning build their whole review cycle around it.

+Decks and progress sync free across desktop and Android through AnkiWeb, no subscription required for the core workflow.

−The interface looks dated next to Notion or RemNote, with a real setup cost before card creation feels fast.

−AnkiMobile on iOS, at the featured rate above, is a one-time App Store purchase, an unusual cost next to every free Android and desktop option here.

Great value

Anki's pricing is exceptionally generous: the desktop, web, and Android apps are completely free, while the iOS version costs a one-time $24.99.

See Anki alternatives →

OneNote

4.6 on Capterra (1,982 reviews)
4.5 on G2 (1,852 reviews)
1.8 on Trustpilot (30 reviews)

Students already using Microsoft 365 through their school who want a free notebook across every device.

+OneNote itself is entirely free, with unlimited notebooks and sections tied to any free Microsoft account.

+Stylus input and voice transcription both work on the free tier, useful for a lecture on a Surface or an Android tablet.

+Microsoft 365 Personal, at the featured rate above, layers in Copilot inside OneNote plus 1TB of storage shared with Word and Excel, often already covered by a university's own Microsoft 365 license.

−Handwriting search and PDF markup are noticeably thinner than a dedicated app like GoodNotes.

−Copilot's AI drafting stays locked behind the Microsoft 365 subscription; the free app does not include it.

Great value

OneNote's pricing is exceptionally generous, as the core product is entirely free with unlimited notebooks and cross-platform sync.

See OneNote alternatives →

GoodNotes

4.7 on G2 (123 reviews)
4.5 on Capterra (77 reviews)
4.0 on Trustpilot (63 reviews)

Students who annotate slide decks and textbooks by hand and want the closest thing to a real notebook.

+Free covers 3 notebooks, a 100MB storage cap, and 20 minutes of audio recording, enough to test handwriting quality for a class or two.

+Essential, at the featured rate above, removes those caps and adds unlimited notebooks and audio, a low yearly cost for a heavy annotator.

+Handwriting-to-text conversion makes a scanned lecture slide searchable, closer to typed notes than a plain PDF markup tool.

−The full AI experience needs a separate $9.99/mo add-on on top of any paid plan, an easy cost to miss when budgeting.

−It only runs well on Apple hardware, so a student on Windows or Android gets more value from OneNote instead.

Good value

The AI Pass+ at $9.99/month feels expensive as an add-on, almost matching the annual cost of Essential.

Watch out

AI Pass+ is a significant monthly add-on.

See GoodNotes alternatives →

NotebookLM

Students who need to turn a stack of PDFs and lecture slides into a study guide with real citations.

+The core product is free, with generous limits on notebooks, sources per notebook, and AI-generated audio overviews for a study session.

+Every answer cites the exact source passage it came from, which cuts down on the fabricated citations a general chatbot can produce.

+Uploading an entire course's readings into one notebook turns scattered PDFs into a single searchable study resource.

−Higher usage limits require a separate Google AI Pro subscription, $19.99/mo in the US, though the exact rate still varies by account region.

−It answers only from uploaded material, so it is a poor fit for open-ended brainstorming the way a general AI chat tool is.

Good value

NotebookLM (renamed Gemini Notebook in July 2026) is free for personal use with a 50-source cap per notebook.

Watch out

notebooklm.google.com/pricing redirects to Google sign-in. The public plan card is notebooklm.google/plans.

See NotebookLM alternatives →

Obsidian

4.5 on G2 (12 reviews)

Research-heavy majors who want markdown notes stored as local files and linked into a personal wiki.

+The core app is free without limits, and every note is a plain markdown file the student keeps even if they stop using the app.

+Sync, at the featured rate above or $5/mo billed monthly, adds encrypted sync across a laptop and a phone for a thesis or dissertation kept in one vault.

+The graph view surfaces connections between notes from different classes a linear notebook would never show.

−There is no native Apple Pencil handwriting support, so a student who annotates PDFs by hand needs GoodNotes alongside it.

−Without the Sync add-on, moving a vault between a laptop and a phone needs a manual workaround or a third-party tool.

Great value

Obsidian core app is genuinely free with no feature gating, every note-taking and knowledge management feature works without paying.

Watch out

Sync ($4-5/month) is almost mandatory for multi-device users. While you can use free alternatives (iCloud, Google Drive, Git), they introduce sync conflicts that Obsidian Sync solves with end-to-end encryption and proper conflict resolution. Most serious users end up paying for Sync

See Obsidian alternatives →

Evernote

4.4 on Capterra (8,254 reviews)
4.4 on G2 (2,042 reviews)

Students who save articles and research PDFs more than they write freeform notes.

+Free covers 50 notes and 1GB of storage on a single device, enough to test the web clipper before paying.

+Starter, at the featured rate above, raises limits to 1,000 notes and 3-device sync, with AI search included for a full semester's research.

+The browser clipper saves a full article with formatting and images intact, closer to archiving than a quick copy-paste.

−The free plan's single-device sync cap is easy to hit partway through a research project spanning a laptop and a phone.

−Handwriting and PDF markup tools exist but feel thinner than GoodNotes or OneNote's dedicated stylus support.

Weak value

This pricing structure seems best suited for long-time, entrenched Evernote users who value continuity.

See Evernote alternatives →

Apple Notes

4.1 on SourceForge (14 reviews)

Students who want free notes and light handwriting without installing or paying for anything.

+Notes ships free with every Apple device and syncs across iPhone, iPad, and Mac through a free Apple ID.

+Scribble converts handwriting to typed text natively, and basic PDF markup and tagging are both built in.

+iCloud+, at the featured rate above for 50GB, extends storage for notes and photos below any dedicated note app's paid tier.

−There is no flashcard or spaced-repetition feature anywhere in the app, so exam review still needs a second tool like Anki.

−It only syncs cleanly across Apple devices, a poor fit for a student who switches between a Mac and an Android phone.

Great value

Apple Notes itself is entirely free and incredibly generous, offering full functionality without any locked features.

Watch out

iCloud storage needed for large attachments

See Apple Notes alternatives →

Google Keep

Students who need to capture a short note or to-do list in seconds, tied to their Google account.

+Keep is entirely free with a Google account and has no paid tier of its own to budget for.

+Color-coded, pinnable notes and checklists sync instantly across a phone, tablet, and browser.

+It opens faster than a full workspace app, useful for jotting an assignment deadline while walking between buildings.

−There is no outlining, linking, or flashcard feature, so it cannot replace Notion or RemNote for real class notes.

−Long-form lecture notes get unwieldy fast; Keep is built for short notes, not a full page of writing.

Great value

At $0/month, Google Keep offers genuinely generous pricing with no strings attached for cross-device sync, offline access, and real-time collaboration.

See Google Keep alternatives →

Other Note-Taking tools worth considering

More published tools from our Note-Taking category, ordered by our category ranking. They are not part of the editorial picks above.

Fathom

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

Notion AI

AI that works where you already work

Fellow

Transform meetings into productive sessions with clear outcomes

Notion Calendar

Unify work and personal schedules with integrated deadlines and scheduling links

Nabla

Ambient AI for clinical notes and EHR dictation

Otter.ai

AI meeting notes and transcription

Clover

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

XMind

Mind mapping and brainstorming

Noteable

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

Boostnote

Open-source note-taking for developers, with Markdown and code snippet support.

Bluedot

The most accurate AI note taker that captures, transcribes, and summarizes every meeting, bot-free.

Scrivener

The ultimate writing studio for long-form projects, combining tools for drafting, research, and organization.

Expand Board for macOS

An infinite whiteboard for freeform thinking and project organization

Capacities

Organize information the way you think with a personal knowledge graph

Notta

AI-powered notetaker for transcribing, summarizing, and translating meetings and audio in real-time.

See all Note-Taking →

What a note-taking app needs to do for a student

A note-taking app for students has to survive a semester of use across three separate moments: writing down what a syllabus and a professor say, reviewing it before an exam, and finding one specific note again months later. That splits the category into overlapping tools rather than one winner. A workspace like Notion or OneNote organizes a full course load into pages and tabs. A capture tool like GoodNotes or Apple Notes catches handwriting or a quick line during a lecture. A retention tool like Anki or RemNote turns that captured material into flashcards a student actually reviews. Few students use just one; most pair a workspace with a retention tool.

Why retention, not just capture, separates this list

Most note-taking guides rank capture and organization and stop there, which works for a professional but misses half of what a student needs: the material has to survive a cumulative final, not just sit in a folder. That gap is why Anki and RemNote outrank bigger, more polished workspaces here despite thinner feature lists. It also explains why free tiers carry more weight on this page than on a general buyer's guide: a student re-buying the same app every semester after switching schools is a real cost the category rarely prices in. Notion vs Obsidian covers the typed-notes fork of this decision in more depth for a reader choosing between the two.

Key Features to Look For

Free tier that survives a real course load (Essential)
Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Anki, Obsidian, and Google Keep all run daily use on $0. RemNote, GoodNotes, and NotebookLM cap the free tier at a level a light note-taker can still live with.
Spaced-repetition flashcards (Essential)
Anki and RemNote both schedule review of a card right before a student is likely to forget it. Notion, OneNote, Evernote, and Apple Notes have no spaced-repetition engine at all.
Lecture and handwriting capture (Important)
GoodNotes renders Apple Pencil ink and marks up a PDF slide deck directly. OneNote and Apple Notes both support basic stylus input; Notion converts a pencil stroke to typed text through Scribble rather than keeping the ink.
AI reading and study assistance (Important)
NotebookLM reads uploaded readings and lecture PDFs and answers questions grounded only in those sources, with citations back to the exact page. RemNote's AI tier adds a similar grounded chat inside its own notes.
Linked notes and a personal knowledge base (Important)
Obsidian stores every note as a local markdown file and links related ideas into a graph, useful for a thesis or a research-heavy major. Notion's databases achieve a similar link between notes and a class schedule.
Cross-device sync (Essential)
Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Google Keep, and Anki's desktop and mobile apps sync free. GoodNotes and Obsidian gate full sync behind a paid add-on.
Web clipping and PDF archiving (Nice to have)
Evernote's clipper saves a full article or a research page with formatting intact, useful for a literature review. None of the other nine picks match its archiving depth.
Student and education pricing (Important)
Notion's Plus plan is free for a verified school email address. Microsoft, Apple, and Google all bundle their own note apps into broader education or family plans rather than pricing the note app alone.

What to weigh before picking a student note-taking app

Separate the three jobs before comparing price: organizing a semester, capturing a lecture, and retaining material for an exam rarely fit inside one app equally well.
Check for a student discount before paying full price; Notion's Plus tier is free with a school email, and Microsoft, Apple, and Google bundle education pricing elsewhere.
Weigh a subscription against years of use, not one semester; RemNote's or GoodNotes' yearly fee compounds over a four-year degree in a way a single tuition-season budget can hide.
If memorization for exams is the real problem, start with Anki or RemNote rather than a bigger, better-known workspace that has no spaced-repetition engine at all.
A reader who wants notes as local files with no vendor account should weigh the self-hosted note-taking guide against Obsidian's free core app.
Test handwriting capture on the exact device in hand before paying for GoodNotes; a Windows laptop or an Android tablet gets more from OneNote's native stylus support.

Evaluation Checklist

List which of the three jobs, organizing, capturing, or retaining, matters most this semester before comparing price across apps built for different ones.
Check for a student discount before paying full price; Notion's Plus plan is free with a school email, verified during research for this guide.
Test handwriting or stylus input on the exact device in hand, since GoodNotes favors an iPad while OneNote favors Windows or Android.
Try Anki or RemNote's free tier for one week of real review before paying for either; the spaced-repetition habit matters more than the app.
Confirm free-tier storage or note caps against a full semester's volume, not a first week of testing, before assuming a free plan will last.

Pricing Overview

Free, full course load

Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Anki's desktop and web apps, Obsidian's core app, Google Keep, and NotebookLM's standard notebook limits, for a student who never wants a recurring charge.

Budget exam-prep subscription

RemNote Pro billed annually and Notion Plus for a non-student workspace, for spaced repetition or unlimited pages beyond the free caps.

Under $12 a month

One-time handwriting or memorization app

GoodNotes' Essential tier billed annually and the AnkiMobile iOS app, both a fixed low cost rather than an ongoing subscription for the core feature.

Under $40

Bundled family or education subscription

Microsoft 365 Personal for OneNote's Copilot layer and Apple's iCloud+ storage tiers, useful once a student outgrows the free storage that ships with the note app itself.

Under $11 a month

Full AI or deep exam-prep tier

RemNote Pro with AI and GoodNotes Pro, where unlimited AI grading, lecture recording, or real-time collaboration turn on above the entry tier.

$18/mo for RemNote or roughly $36/yr for GoodNotes

Pricing Comparison

Best Note-Taking Apps for Students pricing comparison, as of September 2026
Tool	Best for	Entry price	Free tier	Watch
Notion	Organizing a full course load in one free workspace	Free; Plus $10/mo/member, annual	Unlimited pages and blocks for one user	Plus is free for students with a school email, but the standard rate applies otherwise
RemNote	Spaced-repetition flashcards built into outlined notes	Free; Pro $8/mo, annual	Unlimited notes and flashcards, capped at 3 annotated PDFs	Lecture recording and AI grading sit on Pro with AI, not the base Pro tier
Anki	Free spaced-repetition flashcards a student keeps for years	Free desktop, web, and Android; AnkiMobile $24.99 one-time	Full desktop, AnkiWeb, and AnkiDroid apps at no cost	The iOS app is a one-time App Store purchase, not free like the rest of the platform
OneNote	A free, cross-platform digital binder for every class	Free; Microsoft 365 Personal $99.99/yr	Unlimited notebooks with a free Microsoft account	Copilot inside OneNote needs the Microsoft 365 subscription, not the free app
GoodNotes	Handwritten lecture and textbook annotation on an iPad	Free; Essential $11.99/yr, annual	3 notebooks, 20 minutes of audio, 100MB storage	Full AI features need a separate $9.99/mo add-on on top of any paid plan
NotebookLM	AI study guides grounded only in a student's own readings	Free	Multiple notebooks with generous source and audio-overview limits	Higher limits require Google AI Pro, $19.99/mo in the US, not a NotebookLM-specific fee
Obsidian	Linked markdown notes stored as local files for research	Free; Sync add-on $4/mo/user, annual	The full core app, unlimited notes, no account required	No native Apple Pencil ink, and sync between devices needs the paid add-on
Evernote	Archiving web clips and PDFs for a literature review	Free; Starter $8.25/mo, annual	50 notes, 1 notebook, single-device sync	The free plan's single-device cap is easy to hit partway through a research project
Apple Notes	A free handwriting and text app already on every Apple device	Free; iCloud+ from $0.99/mo	Unlimited notes with a free Apple ID	No dedicated flashcard or spaced-repetition tool, only plain notes and checklists
Google Keep	Quick capture of a reminder or a short list between classes	Free	Unlimited notes within a free Google account's storage	No outlining, linking, or flashcard features, built for short notes, not full lectures

Read September 2026 on vendor pages: Notion pricing, RemNote pricing, AnkiMobile on the App Store, Microsoft 365 plans, GoodNotes pricing, Obsidian pricing, Evernote plans, Apple iCloud+ pricing, Google AI plans.

Mistakes to Avoid

×
Picking Notion for exam review and being surprised it has no built-in flashcard or spaced-repetition system.
×
Paying for GoodNotes Pro expecting full AI features, which still need a separate monthly add-on on top of any paid plan.
×
Assuming NotebookLM's higher usage limits are free because the core product is, when they need a separate Google subscription.
×
Signing up for Evernote Free and hitting the single-device sync cap mid-semester while moving between a laptop and a phone.

Expert Tips

→
Pair a free organization app like Notion or OneNote with Anki for review; students who use both consistently outperform students who rely on rereading notes alone.
→
Sign up for Notion with a school email before paying for Plus; the free upgrade for students is easy to miss.
→
Trial GoodNotes and OneNote's free tiers side by side for a week of real lecture notes before paying for either.
→
Keep the Best Note-Taking Apps guide open if the same notes also need to work for a non-student reader on the same account.
→
Compare a local, no-account option against Obsidian first; the best open-source note-taking apps guide covers that narrower need in depth.
→
Build one Anki deck per course from week one rather than cramming a full semester into flashcards the week before finals.

Red Flags to Watch For

!
A workspace app like Notion or OneNote marketed as an exam-prep tool when neither has a spaced-repetition engine at all.
!
A free tier pitched as unlimited when it actually caps notes, notebooks, or devices, like Evernote Free's single-device sync.
!
AI features assumed included with a base subscription when they sit behind a separate paid add-on, as on GoodNotes.

The Bottom Line

Notion is the note-taking app to start with in 2026 for organizing a full course load, free for most students and free for verified students even on its paid Plus tier. RemNote and Anki matter more once exam prep starts, RemNote for spaced repetition built into outlined notes and Anki for the flashcard habit students keep for years. OneNote and Apple Notes cover casual notes at no cost, GoodNotes handles handwritten lecture capture on an iPad, and NotebookLM turns a stack of readings into a grounded, citable study guide for free. Obsidian, Evernote, and Google Keep round out linked research notes, archived readings, and fast capture, each earning its spot for a narrower reason than the tools above it. Cite this: Toolradar, "Best Note-Taking Apps for Students 2026", September 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best note-taking app for students in 2026?

Notion, for organizing a full course load in one free workspace, and its Plus plan is free for verified students with a school email. RemNote and Anki matter more specifically for exam prep, since neither Notion nor most general note apps include spaced-repetition flashcards.

How much does a note-taking app for students cost?

Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Anki's desktop and web apps, Obsidian's core app, Google Keep, and NotebookLM's standard tier are all free. RemNote's Pro tier starts at $8/mo billed annually, GoodNotes' Essential tier is $11.99/yr, and Evernote's Starter tier is $8.25/mo billed annually.

Is there a free note-taking app good enough for a full semester?

Yes. Notion, OneNote, Apple Notes, Anki, Obsidian's core app, and Google Keep all run a real course load on their free tiers without a forced upgrade. Evernote's free plan caps out fastest, at 50 notes and single-device sync.

What is the best app for exam flashcards and spaced repetition?

Anki, free and purpose-built for spaced repetition, is the app students keep using for years, especially in medicine and language learning. RemNote is the closer alternative for a student who wants flashcards generated directly from outlined class notes rather than built separately.

Notion or OneNote for students?

Choose Notion for databases that link a reading list, a project tracker, and a class schedule together. Choose OneNote for a free, cross-platform notebook that already matches a university's Microsoft 365 account, with simpler handwriting input than Notion's Scribble conversion.

Does Notion have a student discount?

Yes. Signing up with a verified school email makes the Plus plan free, with a one-member limit, instead of the standard $10/mo/member rate billed annually.

Is GoodNotes or OneNote better for handwritten lecture notes?

GoodNotes gives the closer-to-paper ink quality and PDF annotation on an iPad, worth its low yearly Essential fee for a heavy handwritten note-taker. OneNote is free and works the same across Windows, Android, and iPad, a better fit for a student not committed to Apple hardware.

Cite this page: Toolradar, "Best Note-Taking Apps for Students in 2026", updated September 2026, https://toolradar.com/guides/best-note-taking-apps-for-students

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