The 9 Best Apple Notes Alternatives

What is Apple Notes?

Apple Notes is a note-taking application developed by Apple Inc. that is available on all Apple devices running iOS, iPadOS, and macOS operating systems. The application allows users to create and organize notes that can include text, images, sketches, audio recordings, and even checklists. Apple Notes also includes a search function, collaboration features, and the ability to sync across all devices using iCloud. With its user-friendly interface and robust set of features, Apple Notes has become a popular choice for both personal and professional use.

What Are the Best Alternative Options to Apple Notes?

Note-taking is a key part of any productivity workflow, whether jotting down points in a meeting, collaborating on a new project idea with your team, or getting your thoughts organized. For many people working on Mac or iOS devices, the in-built note-taking app is THE go-to, but what are some of the most popular Apple Notes alternatives?

Below is a quick overview of the features that some of these note-taking platforms offer before we take a deeper dive into the pros and cons of each. Some of the key considerations here are inputs (multimedia, text, and formatting), native platforms, and collaboration tools.

Quick-Comparison of the Best Alternatives to Apple Notes

Best Alternatives to Apple Notes

There are plenty of Apple Notes alternatives out there, with many users requiring online notes as well as native apps on different platforms (an iPhone and a Windows laptop, for example). Some of the best apps are part of broader, more powerful productivity software, but all of the options below have the basic features you’ll need for alternative Apple Notes options.

Spike

If you’re looking for the best email client based note-taking application, look no further. Spike Teamspace has created a powerful business productivity suite with email at its core, including collaborative note-taking with multimedia, cross-device synchronization, and more. Spike Teamspace is a complete business email solution that includes team chat, notes with collaboration, video communication, and much more. As a key Apple Notes alternative, Spike’s note taking feature is the true cross collaboration powerhouse that you’ve been searching for.

Google Keep

Google has created an entire productivity ecosystem, which wouldn’t be complete without note-taking. Google Keep is a free app available on Android, iOS, and through web browsers. It offers collaborative note-taking, syncing across platforms, and supports multimedia such as images and gifs making it a good Apple Notes alternative. That said, Google has been known to strip features out of notes before, so this may change.

OneNote

The Microsoft alternative to Apple Notes, OneNote, is one of the old guards when it comes to productivity software, launched way back in 2003. It is an obvious alternative for those working in the Microsoft ecosystem and offers a number of powerful features within a very comprehensive organizational system.

Bear

Bear is an Apple-only note-taking app with advanced Markup editing, making it a great Apple Notes alternative for those who regularly work with this format. It offers basic features but lacks any collaborative tools for team workflows.

Craft

Another Apple Notes alternative is Craft, also natively built for Macs, iPhones, and iPads. It uses an interface of blocks rather than lists of text, which can be valuable for more visual notetakers. It allows for various inputs such as images, sketches, lists, and more but many features are only available for premium users.

Evernote

One of the most well-known alternatives to Apple Notes, Evernote is available across all major platforms and on the web. It has a range of features for different workflows but reserves many of its most standout tools for premium and business users.

Simplenote

Simplenote is a great Apple Notes alternative for Linux users (as well as running on iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and browsers). However, this cross-platform usability comes at the cost of functionality, with Simplenote living up to its name and offering only text. That said, it does offer Markdown support, but if you regularly use emojis, images, or more – forget it.

When you’re looking for the best Apple Notes alternative, there are now some fantastic online notes options available for everyone, from individual freelancers to large-scale enterprises. Using notes effectively can improve productivity as well as simplifying and streamlining tasks. For more productivity tips and tricks, subscribe to the Spike blog or Tweet us @SpikeNowHQ.

Obsidian

The Obsidian app for Mac is a robust knowledge base notes app on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. The idea is to keep your notes organized using simple text files and tag them to create categories and subcategories. This makes it very easy to find what you are looking for as you can search within the whole note.You can also add tags to links, making them clickable. It’s designed as a “Personal Knowledge Manager” where you can create links across notes to build a database. It also has plugins, themes, and custom CSS at your disposal.

Notion

Notion is a note-taking app that’s different from other Mac note-taking apps in a few ways. It’s designed to work with your team — in fact, it’s optimized for teams and groups of people who need to collaborate on projects. That means you can add collaborators to your notes, and they’ll be able to see what you’re working on.

You can also create tables in Notion that are flexible enough to display everything from simple lists to complex formulas. You can also customize the appearance of these tables by changing colors and borders.