Top 17 OneNote Alternatives For Digital Note Taking in 2022

Udn Webber

Writer

Four to six.

That’s how many hours we typically spend a day writing information, reminders , checklists, and goals. We jump from desktop to mobile to tablet and depend on our software to keep us productive and motivated. Then something happens, and we’re on Google search for the umpteenth time:

Most of us struggle to find a note taking app that fits our unique workflow and needs. If you’re tired of going back and forth with Microsoft OneNote for some time, we’ve rounded up a list of the best OneNote alternatives in 2022 to find your match. ✨

Let’s begin!

What is Microsoft OneNote?

OneNote is a digital note taking application available with a Microsoft Office 365 paid subscription or free with a Microsoft account. Notable features include:

Digital note taking is one of the most essential skills you’ll use throughout your life, and you need the best tools to learn and perform at your most productive level. With features such as bi-directional links and advanced text editors becoming popular in note taking, you should have the full picture of powerful note-taking software alternatives to Microsoft Onenote. 👩‍💻

Top 17 Note Taking Apps – Microsoft OneNote Alternatives

1. UDN Task Manager

Best for every season of life

UDN Task Manager is a free project management solution that allows every team to manage projects, collaborate smarter, and bring all your work under one tool. Whether you’re new to project management apps or a total power user, UDN Task Manager ’s customization can stretch to any team size—remote or in-office—for the best productivity of your life.

Among the hundreds of user-friendly tools in UDN Task Manager , we recommend starting with these four (and completely free!) note features: Docs, Notepad, Mind Maps, and Whiteboards. ⬇️

Collect and connect your notes, tasks, and more in Docs with the Relationships ClickApp —a new power set of features for relating anything in UDN Task Manager . (A must-have for fans of bi-directional links!)

👉 Learn how entrepreneur and creative director Karla Massiel maps the customer journey with UDN Task Manager Docs!

Jot down quick ideas, grocery lists , or wireframe a game plan in the UDN Task Manager Notepad!

👉 Download the UDN Task Manager Chrome Extension to take notes on any web page in your browser!

Create the space to expand and stretch your ideas and information with UDN Task Manager Mind Maps!

👉 New to mind maps? Check out this fun guide !

Draw with a pen, add shapes and connectors, upload images, and embed almost anything for non-linear brainstorming .

👉 Watch UDN Task Manager ’s product leaders demo the Whiteboards feature at LevelUp 2021 !

Free Forever Plan Best for personal use

✔︎ Kanban boards

✔︎ Unlimited tasks and members

✔︎ Collaborative Docs

✔︎ 24/7 Support, and more

Business Plan ($9/member per month) Best for mid-sized teams

✔︎ Everything in the Unlimited Plan and…

✔︎ Custom reporting

✔︎ Advanced automation, time tracking, Dashboard features

✔︎ Timelines, Mind Maps, and more

Unlimited Plan ($5/member per month) Best for small teams

✔︎ Everything in the Free Forever Plan and…

✔︎ Resource management

✔︎ Unlimited Storage, Dashboards, Custom Fields

✔︎ Agile reporting, and more

Business Plus Plan ($19/member per month) Best for multiple teams

✔︎ Everything in the Business Plan and…

✔︎ Subtasks in multiple Lists

✔︎ Custom permissions

✔︎ Custom capacity in workload

✔︎ Personalized admin training, and more

👉 If you need a full software suite to handle your Enterprise workloads and processes, we’d love to help set you up for success! Please contact Sales here when you’re ready. 🚀

2. Roam Research

Best for knowledge-graph thinkers

Roam Research, a robust knowledge management application, brands itself as “a note taking tool for networked thought.” It takes mind mapping to a new level with bi-directional links: a node becomes a note users can click to open. Each note can house its own in-text links and connect to other notes to create relationships. Essentially, the interface of Roam Research mirrors how our mind works.

OneNote users might find Roam Research complicated because the structure is entirely different. Unlike OneNote, every page in Roam is an outline made up of hierarchical blocks of text and images. As a result, there aren’t any notebooks or sections to open in a sequential order like OneNote’s interface.

Roam Research offers a 31-day trial and paid plans starting at $15/month.

👉 Check out our guide on Roam Research Alternatives !

3. Notion

Best for building simple to complex pages

Notion is one of the popular note taking apps with 1,000+ community-made templates for download. In Notion , you can create a home base for any project and fully customize your content to match your workflow. With any type of work—wikis, dashboards, or note-taking—users can track tasks, view what needs to be done, and link notes.

Compared to Evernote or OneNote, Notion is a high-maintenance platform. It requires modifying and feature understanding to make your notes not just look aesthetically pleasing, but serve their purpose.

Notion offers a free version for personal use and paid plans starting at $4/month.

4. Apple Notes

Best for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users

Apple Notes is available on all Mac and iOS Apple devices. In recent years, Apple Notes received a huge upgrade making notes more accessible across all devices within the Apple ecosystem.  For note takers on the go, Apple Notes is the most secure with FaceID, TouchID, or password.

While Apple Notes might be the first obvious choice for Apple users, if you’re looking for a better notes hierarchy experience, it’s quite limited compared to Microsoft OneNote’s notebooks, sections, and pages.

Apple Notes is free on any Apple device.

5. Milanote

Best for visual mind-mapping notes

Milanote is a web-based app geared towards visual collaborators such as product designers and photographers. It’s a flexible visual workspace for creating moodboards, capturing notes, and getting feedback on design concepts.

The downside is that Milanote might be a hard program to adjust to if you’re not comfortable with a scrapbook-style layout. You can easily misspend hours organizing notes and figuring out a system not meant for how you think and capture notes.

Milanote offers free and paid plans starting at $9.99/month per user.

6. Notability

Best for drawing with a stylus

Notability is one of the popular subscription-based note taking apps for tablet users. Combined with a stylus, this is a great option for paperless students taking lecture notes in the classroom. Notability’s clean UI, basic features, and built-in toolset make it quite easy to open a quick note and begin drawing in seconds.

What will make the switch from OneNote to Notability worth the cost and reasons? If you prefer writing with a stylus 75% of the time.

Notability offers a free version with a paid subscription starting at $14.99/month per user.

7. Confluence

Best for high-stakes projects in large organizations

The next Microsoft OneNote alternative on our list is Atlassian’s Confluence , a remote-friendly note taking app that serves as a knowledge management and project collaboration workspace. Users are able to create a project plan from scratch or choose from 100+ templates to get started. Roadmaps, Jira issues, and Trello boards are among the features that can be added to Confluence documents for work organization.

Large organizations in terms of team size would benefit the most from Confluence. However, for personal use or with a small group of team members, this software would feel overwhelming compared to OneNote.

Confluence offers free and paid plans starting at $5.50/month per user.

8. Evernote

Best for people who don’t need up-to-date features

You might have come across Evernote in your early schooling or career days. As one of the first digital note taking apps, Evernote’s easy-to-use web clipper tool remains popular to this day. Evernote replaces the need for any physical paper with a scan-and-save feature, so all your things are digitized.

While Evernote proves itself as an all-encompassing database, it’s not a long-term solution for note takers. There’s a lack of transparency in Evernote’s plans for feature improvements. This means users will find themselves searching for Evernote alternatives .

Evernote offers free and paid plans starting at $7.99/month.

9. Bear

Best for Apple ecosystem dwellers

Next is Bear , a simple note taking app for quick notes or in-depth essays. Bear’s tools shorten the time to edit and format notes with streamlined taps and keystrokes for a pleasant writing experience.

This app is popular amongst writers, students, and engineers because categorizing to-do lists in Bear’s sleek interface is easy. However, there are no plans in Bear’s roadmap for Android or Windows devices.

Bear offers free and paid plans starting at $1.49/monthly after a free trial.

10. GoodNotes

Best for students sharing academic material or planner templates

GoodNotes is a smart digital paper and social app for students who want to create shared notes with others worldwide studying the same subjects. This feature (at no extra cost) called Community allows users to create their own profile for others to view their documents.

While the Community feature is an incredible tool for people to connect, the note taking features compared to Notability are limited or non-existent.

GoodNotes does not have a free plan and its paid version starts at $7.99.

11. Notejoy

Best for team collaboration

Notejoy is for teams who favor easy, real-time collaboration. Users can quickly integrate into conversations with features such as note reactions and library overviews. It can also seamlessly import existing notes from OneNote!

If you’re looking for a digital note taking app for personal use, there are other OneNote alternatives on this list that will support your writing goals.

Notejoy has free and paid plans starting at $4/month.

12. Simplenote

Best for Markdown enthusiasts

Simplenote, as its name suggests, is a simple note taking app for a distraction-free environment to brain dump and organize thoughts. Equipped with markdown support, users can write, preview, and publish any note.

Unlike OneNote, SimpleNote lacks collaboration and sharing features that move thoughts into action. As a result, teams can easily overwhelm themselves (and each other) with a running list of notes.

Simplenote is a free notes app.

13. Google Keep

Best for Google Suite power users

Google Keep is ideal for users who want to store reminders and notes while on the go. Its ability to quickly search for notes by color or list name helps get things done faster.

Google Keep is convenient next to your Google calendar or Google Docs, but it’s not a fully-fledged note taking app to commit long-term use for work-related content. Unlike OneNote, it’s a basic platform for basic needs with no hints at evolving for a modern note taking experience.

Google Keep is free with a Google account.

👉 Bonus Guide: Google Keep vs Evernote !

14. Workflowy

Best for text-based note takers

Workflowy is a hierarchical note taking app built to capture, organize, analyze, and share content. Notes are organized into nesting structures that can also convert to Kanban boards . This allows users to view their work at a high level or zoom into specific details. Don’t have enough time to look at a shared note from a colleague? Easily save the note to view later.

This alternative to Onenote is intuitive for anyone to use, but select types of heavy note takers and businesses that depend on remote collaboration will benefit (and get their money’s worth) from the platform.

Workflowy offers a free plan and the paid plan starts at $4.99/month.

15. Dropbox Paper

Best for simple word processing documents

The next OneNote alternative on our list is Dropbox Paper, a seamless collaboration tool for teams of all sizes and industries to edit documents and share all your notes within the program. Users can add annotations to images, mention people from documents, and connect to their calendars to find meeting notes quickly. Its simple but powerful syncing capabilities put everyone on the same page.

On the flip side, if you’re looking to share professional presentation slides, Dropbox lacks advanced formatting features compared to popular word processors. It satisfies the need to get everyone’s thoughts out on digital paper, but not for publishing or your next stakeholder meeting if you aren’t comfortable with formatting.

Inquire with Dropbox Paper for storage and pricing.

16. Typora

Best for people who crave a true Markdown editor experience

Typora is a seamless markdown editor (text-to-HTML conversion tool) geared towards content creators and engineers who prefer seeing a live preview of the final document to help concentrate on the content itself. Not only is it a markdown editor—its powerful outline organization system allows you to quickly go through the document and jump to any section with one click.

The jump from Microsoft OneNote to Typora could shock some users if they’re not familiar with markdown editors. It’ll feel like you’re spending too much time figuring out the app instead of doing actual work.

Typora offers a 15-day free trial for up to three devices. The paid version starts at $14.99.

17. Zoho Notebook

Best for custom cover illustrations

Zoho Notebook is a free note taking app with an intuitive design for all your devices and operating systems. Zoho Notebook integrates with Zoho Projects and is packed with mobile-friendly features such as Zia, the AI-powered assistant, and notable gestures for searching information.

Compared to OneNote, this app has more fun with color and personalization for personal use. However, if you’re looking for an app for serious note taking and work collaboration, Zoho Notebook might not be for you. The editor is limited to basic functionalities.

Zoho Notebook is a free notes application.

How to Choose a Microsoft OneNote Alternative

At this point in your schooling or career, you’ve heard, “the perfect notes app depends on what your needs are!”

So if we know what we need, why are we still disappointed in the end? Maybe, we’re looking at this wrong. Typically, we choose our notes app based on two methods: note taking style or use case . How about considering the sweet spot? ⬇️

· Text-Based

· Visual Boards

· Combination

· Free Form

· Outline

An all-purpose app that complements our productivity system

· Writers

· Developers

· Students

· Professionals

· Families

What’s a productivity system ? It’s your unique set of processes and tools working together to help you get things done efficiently. Here are criteria questions to consider along with your productivity system to guide you on your search:

If you’re looking to save time and money testing multiple apps that will ultimately get tossed, try UDN Task Manager , the best free Onenote alternative for cross-platform note taking!

Your Notes, Your Way in UDN Task Manager

Sign up for a free UDN Task Manager account and start taking notes with UDN Task Manager ’s Docs, Notepad, Mind Maps, or Whiteboards. UDN Task Manager wasn’t built for specific note takers or use cases—but to make everyone feel connected and present with their work. ✍️💡🚀