11 Best OneNote Alternatives That Serve as Amazing Competitors

With note-taking being one of the most critical parts of any professional designation, the tools facilitating note-taking have also inculcated themselves into our lives, quite in a central position.

With Microsoft at the helm of it, One Note is currently the best note-taking application in the market.

Year Founded: 2002
Headquarters: Redmond, Washington, United States

A free-to-use software that comes bundled with the Microsoft Office package, OneNote is simple and reliable. We can take notes of any sort and any length without compromising on the quality. The interface is simple and very user-friendly, rendering OneNote to provide a hassle-free experience to its users.

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List of Top Onenote Alternatives

To be the best, you have to defeat those competing against you. OneNote has its competition too. Let’s take a look at the best OneNote alternatives available that can get the job done.

Ntask

Year Founded: 2015
Headquarters: Irvine, California, United States

One of the best project management and task management application of this era, nTask is a brilliant note-taking tool as well, making it an absolute powerhouse of productivity. The app makes sure that all the tasks are documented properly and are available wherever needed.

It also lets us take down small notes for the various projects or tasks that are being worked on so that not a single detail is missed out on. Management as well as note-taking to enhance it makes nTask one of the best OneNote alternatives.

Evernote

Year Founded: 2000
Headquarters: Redwood City, California, United States

One of the oldest to exist in this domain, Evernote is arguably the best OneNote alternative.

A free-to-use software that gets the job done with free-to-use resources, Evernote’s premium plan is extremely cheap when compared to the competition, making it all the more attractive.

With Evernote, we can take down notes for specific web pages. Along with it, we can generate to-do lists and sticky notes and even take down notes while in a meeting.

Have a look at the Top Evernote Alternatives And Competitors.

Clickup

Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Diego, California, United States

Recently coming into existence, ClickUp has used the innovation in technology to its fullest potential. The tool not only allows us to take down notes but also comes in with customizations.

We can now create outlined wikis, roadmaps, agendas, mindmaps, and much more with ClickUp. The application is feature-packed, allowing us to edit documents and work on an inbuilt whiteboard side by side, providing a seamless experience. ClickUp is definitely one of the best OneNote alternatives.

Notion

Year Founded: 2016
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

Another great alternative to OneNote has to be Notion. A project management tool, Notion also has accessibility for notes for each and every small part of a project. With Notion, we can create short notes, highlights, key points, and much more.

It also has options for creating custom-made checklists and note histories to enhance the experience. Notion’s pricing is something that definitely makes it worthy of being a OneNote alternative. It offers a custom plan for the user to suit their requirements.

Roam Research

Year Founded: 2017
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

A very new entry in this domain, Roam Research is a great OneNote alternative. With Roam Research, mind maps have taken a leap. With Roam Research, you can create notes that have their own in-text links.

One can easily link the source of the note or even the word using Roam Research’s bi-directional mind mapping tool. However, the caveat is that Roam Research’s interface is a little complex, and the app is more on the expensive side.

Apple Notes

Year Founded: 2019
Headquarters: Apple Park, Cupertino, United States

With Apple being at the helm of things, nothing can possibly go wrong with Apple Notes’ experience. An absolute treat for the ones with the Apple ecosystem, Apple Notes is one of the most refined and well-thought applications present in this list.

Moreover, what makes it an outright competitor of OneNote is its security. With Apple notes, the notes taken are encrypted and can be password protected too.

Milanote

Year Founded: 2016
Headquarters: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

With a scrapbook-style layout, Milanote is by far the most creative notes-taking tool. Photographers, product designers, and graphic designers will surely find Milanote attractive.

It has spaces for creating mood boards, notes, and most importantly, feedback submission. What makes it a great alternative to OneNote is its pricing policy. Milanote is extremely cheap to use and, thus, boasts of a very creative user base which also is huge in numbers.

Notability

Year Founded: 2010
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

Versatility is what Notability is all about. A great app with a very simple and user-friendly interface, Notability is mainly for stylus users. It is arguably the next best alternative to OneNote when note-taking in class is being considered.

Students especially, can carry their tablets and stylus with Notability in it and take down notes with ease. It even offers features that can combine text and images together in a note. However, OneNote has a slight edge when the pricing is considered.

Goodnotes

Year Founded: 2011
Headquarters: Quarry Bay, Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong

Simple. Easy-to-use. User friendly. All these sum up one’s experience of Goodnotes. With a built-in community, Goodnotes is an amazing tool for students. They can create notes for a specific subject and share them worldwide for free with the community.

Goodnotes also come with features like PDF annotation, templates, and handwriting recognition. The best part that makes it a worthy competitor to OneNote is its pricing. Available for very cheap pricing, Goodnotes is very attractive, especially for students.

Simplenote

Year Founded: 2008
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States

As the name itself suggests, Simplenote is a simple note-taking application catering mainly to those who are not very tech-savvy. It is a very easy-to-use tool that has features like markers, highlighters, and a sticky note facility.

Simplenote is a distraction-free platform to brain-dump all our ideas and publish them as articles for review and reading purposes. What gives OneNote an edge over Simplenote is its lack of collaboration features.

Google Keep

Year Founded: 2013
Headquarters: Mountain View, California, United States

One of the toughest competitors of OneNote, Google Keep is a note-taking tool established by Google. With Keep, one can capture different ideas, thoughts, and notes, including texts, audio, reminders, and images.

It allows us to organize plain text and edit it using various editing tools readily available within it. Keep also has a collaboration feature in-built into it, rendering the collab process hassle-free and simple.

FAQs for Top Onenote Alternatives

How Many Notebooks Can Onenote Have?

OneNote can have an infinite number of notebooks present in it.

Where Are Onenote Files Stored?

Most of the OneNote files are stored inside of OneDrive, except for a few exceptional cases.

Does Onenote Have a Storage Limit?

For free users, OneNote offers a space for around 5GB. There’s also a free edition for education that includes 1TB of online storage. For everybody else, Microsoft 365 Personal also includes 1TB of storage, though you share that space with other apps.

What Are the Three Main Parts of Onenote?

OneNote consists of three core components: Notebooks, Sections, and Pages.

Can Onenote Merge Notebooks?

There is a feature in OneNote called Merge into Another Section. The Merge into Another Section feature in OneNote allows the user to search for notebooks and then merge the sections from one notebook to the section of the other notebook.