17 Best OneNote Alternatives & Competitors 2024 (Free & Paid)

In the digital age, note-taking has evolved far beyond the traditional pen and paper. Microsoft OneNote has been at the forefront of this transformation, offering a versatile platform for organizing thoughts, meeting notes, and project details. But as the world of technology advances, a variety of alternatives have emerged, each with its unique features and benefits.

In this blog, we will explore 17 of the best OneNote alternatives for note taking in 2024!

Let’s begin!

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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:

• Handwritten notes and sketches with fingers or a stylus
• Voice notes
• Virtual Sticky Notes
• Text translation
• Built-in Math Assistant (paid feature)
• Email to OneNote
• Copilot AI assistant
• OneNote Templates

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Microsoft OneNote Limitations

OneNote doesn’t come without it’s challenges for note takers. A few OneNote limitations include

• Lack of integrations
• Limited export capabilities
• Weak editing features
• No offline mode
• No “find & replace” features

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. 👩‍💻

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17 Best Microsoft OneNote Alternatives & Note Taking Apps

1. ClickUp

ClickUp is a free project management software 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, ClickUp’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 ClickUp, we recommend starting with these four (and completely free!) note features: Docs, Notepad, Mind Maps, and Whiteboards. ⬇️

ClickUp Docs

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

• Turn on focus mode so you can hyperfocus on one block of text at a time
• Select a custom cover image from the gallery, your desktop, a link, or the Unsplash library
• Assign threaded replies so action items never get lost
• View relationships and backlinks for the page you’re on or relationships for an entire document
• Create and access templates from the right sidebar. Use ClickUp’s Knowledge Base Template to get started!

Download This Template

ClickUp Brain

Use ClickUp Brain to take your productivity to the next level. Save time and let ClickUp’s AI feature summarize your notes, write down ideas, write a blog post, and more.

ClickUp AI recognizes and suggests tasks as you type so that you can quickly create new tasks without having to open the task editor. It offers an easy way to organize your work, assign tasks, set due dates, and more with just a few clicks. With ClickUp’s AI-powered task suggestion engine, you get tailored suggestions for everything from titles and descriptions to

ClickUp Notepad

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

• Open a note and expand it to fill the screen
• View and revert changes in note history
• Print your notes in a visually pleasing way
• Search – Find a keyword in your notes
• Add rich editing with /Slash Commands

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

✅ ClickUp Pros

• Keep all your conversations in one place by sending and receiving emails directly from ClickUp tasks
• Choose from 100 native integrations along with thousands available through Zapier and Integromat
• Get work done and on the go with the mobile version
• Plan, manage, and accomplish your daily, weekly, quarterly, and yearly Goals
• Invite anyone to your ClickUp and collaborate
• Connect with a world-class customer support team, watch on-demand webinars, or speak with a ClickUp vetted consultant
• Save custom templates for repeated workflows or use templates we’ve created in the Template Center
• AI powered Docs for content creation and note taking

❌ ClickUp Cons

• Not all ClickUp views are available on the mobile app… yet! 🔮

💸 ClickUp Pricing

• Free Forever Plan (best for personal use)
• Unlimited Plan (best for small teams ($7/member per month)
• Business Plan (best for mid-sized teams ($12/member per month)
• ClickUp Brain is available on all paid plans for $5 per member per month

👉 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 when you’re ready.

💬 ClickUp Customer Ratings

• G2: 4.7/5 (3,880+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (2,480+ reviews)

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.

👉 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.

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.

👉 Check out our guide on Roam Research vs Notion!

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.

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.

Check out these Notability alternatives!

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.

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.

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.

Check out these Bear alternatives!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Compare Google Keep Vs OneNote!

👉 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.

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.

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.

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.

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Your Notes, Your Way with OneNote Alternatives

When it comes to making notes, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Whether you’re a writer who wants a markdown editor or an engineering student looking for a sleek interface to categorize your notes, our list ClickUp has you covered.

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

Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.

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