While traditional sticky notes have served us well in the physical world, the virtual realm has introduced a whole new level of convenience and accessibility. Welcome to the era of online whiteboards and sticky tools.
Online sticky notes can be of great help not just in streamlining collaboration or to brainstorm ideas, but also in overcoming issues arising from context switching.
In this article, we present a comprehensive roundup of the 10 best free online sticky notes tools available in 2024.
Before we begin, let’s quickly go through some of the most important criteria for choosing an online sticky notes solution.
The 10 Best Free Online Sticky Notes Tools in 2024
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Should You Look For in Online Sticky Note Apps?
There are many free online sticky notes tools and whiteboard software around and they all taunt excellent features and promise amazing functionalities.
- User-friendliness Look for an intuitive interface that allows effortless creation, organization, and customization of notes. Just like you need a clean, well-organized desk, you also need a clean and simple board as your visual workspace
- Collaboration features are more than welcome, especially for team-oriented projects, as they enable real-time sharing and editing even when not in the same room. Features like these are tremendously helpful in organization and project prioritization
- Robust security measures should not be overlooked, safeguarding your sensitive data
By prioritizing these qualities, you can find a sticky note tool that perfectly suits your needs and elevates your digital organization to new heights.
Summarize this article for me pleaseThe 10 Best Online Sticky Notes Apps in 2024
1. ClickUp
Anyone looking for a robust, comprehensive, and feature-rich online whiteboards and notes tool, look no further than ClickUp. The ClickUp Whiteboards feature provides a virtual canvas for ideas, workflows, and strategies.
One of the best things about ClickUp Whiteboards is that it comes with an amazing set of premade whiteboard templates – from organization charts and roadmaps, to user story mapping and impact effort matrix, you will find templates that streamline and speed up all the most important aspects of your workflow and help you track your progress.
While this great tool is excellent as an aide in your brainstorming session and mapping efforts, as well as robust agile workflows, it’s also great for simpler, but equally essential stuff, like to-do lists. Plus, it is one of the best AI-powered note taking tools around.
Note that ClickUp is so much more than just a virtual sticky notes tool. It’s a full-fledged collaboration, productivity, and project management platform so in addition to ClickUp Whiteboards you also get to enjoy a wide range of other features that will greatly improve your workflow.
ClickUp best features
- Use premade templates or create a new one to streamline your team collaboration and track progress. ClickUp template center features a rich selection of templates divided into experience levels and for 13+ use cases—easily editable in your online whiteboard
- The Mind Map feature helps you display complex concepts and best ideas in a simple, clean, and easy-to-understand way
- Fully editable items, tasks, and Docs that you can duplicate, draw on, link to each other, etc.
- Rich customization options include changing everything from the color and size of the items to connector types, allowing you to create a unique whiteboard that reflects your ideas and processes perfectly
- ClickUp also comes with a Reminder App feature to make sure you never miss a meeting or a deadline
ClickUp limitations
- Somewhat steep learning curve
- Few complaints about the Android app
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever plan
- Unlimited: $7/month per user
- Business: $12/month per user
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp AI is available on all paid plans for $5 per Workspace member per month
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (8,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (3,000+ reviews)
2. Padlet
Padlet is another great solution for organizing your teamwork, improving team collaboration, and prioritizing your work. Its main feature is virtual boards, called “padlets,” for organizing and sharing content with team members and occasional collaborators.
And by content, we mean virtually anything. As one of the sticky note board tools, it obviously serves for creating various online sticky notes, but the padlets can also contain video and audio files, photos, freehand drawings, links to YouTube or Twitter, and more.
Padlet best features
- Supports 45 languages
- Padlet has apps for web, iOS, Android, Mac, PC, Chromebook
- 119 customizable wallpapers and emoji support
- Beautiful boards with great attention to graphics and visual details
Padlet limitations
- Free plan is rather basic
- Limited video length and file size
- Comments can’t be threaded or formatted
Padlet pricing
- Free plan for up to 3 padlets
- Gold plan for up to 20 padlets: €4.99/month
- Platinum plan with unlimited padlets: €6.99/month
- Team plan: €9.99/month
- School plan: starting at €1,000/year (ask for a quote)
Padlet ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.6/5 (20+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.8/5 (130+ reviews)
3. IdeaBoardz
Fans of really simple, no-frills solutions that put more emphasis on simplicity and convenience than on visual bells and whistles – check out IdeaBoardz. It is one of the free online sticky note tools for team collaboration, ideal for collaborative brainstorming sessions and retrospectives.
What IdeaBoardz does is really extremely simple: you create an online sticky note board with one or more sections and then add notes to it. You can share the board with your team or other collaborators via URL or export it as PDF or XI.
IdeaBoardz has a couple of templates to choose from, with a particular focus on retrospectives. It can also be used for pros/cons discussions, risks/opportunities evaluations, and feedback.
IdeaBoardz best features
- An extremely simple and straightforward user interface
- Easy to share for a brainstorming session
- Ideal for fans of old-school design
IdeaBoardz limitations
- No integration options
- No reports or analytics
- Doesn’t work in real time
IdeaBoardz pricing
- Free
IdeaBoardz ratings and reviews
- G2: 4/5 (1 review)
- Capterra: No reviews
4. Pinup
Pinup is a free online sticky notes solution that really captures the feel of real sticky notes made of paper on a corkboard. It’s basically just notes on the board, but they can be customized and color-coded.
The Pinup virtual sticky notes board is readily available in your browser, you don’t need to download or install anything, and it’s incredibly simple to use – you can add sticky notes in just a few clicks. Unlike some other solutions that put simplicity at the forefront, Pinup does offer some customization options for writing your quick notes.
Each canvas gets a unique code so when you need your board, just access its unique URL.
Pinup best features
- Supports video input
- Notes can be linked, duplicated, and moved around
- File import from computer or Dropbox
- Group chat feature
Pinup limitations
- No integration options
- No customer support
- Features are limited to notes alone
- No push notifications
Pinup pricing
- Free
Pinup ratings and reviews
- G2: No reviews
- Capterra: No reviews
5. CardBoard
CardBoard is an online collaborative workspace solution based around virtual sticky note features, but with features that make it more complex and convenient for team collaboration and remote meetings than the plain post-it corkboard apps.
Completely customizable and shareable, it allows teams to communicate in real-time across their digital whiteboards and to use templates (also customizable) to map workflows, user stories, agendas, flowcharts, and much more.
From teams to wedding planners, CardBoard is a great visual tool to streamline work and improve collaboration using virtual sticky note capabilities.
CardBoard best features
- A great selection of templates (UX/UI, agile…) and you can also make your own and save them
- Direct in-app communication (discussions, voting, commenting, annotations…)
- Integrations with all major agile platforms (Jira, Trello, Azure…)
- Users can create communities and assign permissions
CardBoard limitations
- Cards too small for notes with a lot of text, no card overlapping
- Complaints about the Jira tasks integration
- Hard to manage with bigger maps
CardBoard pricing
- Essential: $9/month per user
- Professional: $15/month per user
- Enterprise: $19/month per user
CardBoard ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.1/5 (15 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.2/5 (170 reviews)
6. Stickies
Stickies is a modern and dynamic digital sticky notes board for brainstorming sessions, retrospectives and affinity mapping, developed by Carbon Five. It uses smart “stickies” or digital sticky notes that change color code depending on the context, which guarantees consistent formatting. With a particular focus on the agile process, Stickies is made with software teams in mind, but it can be a great asset to any other team that needs an online sticky note tool to share ideas, too.
Stickies allow teams to create multiple sheets on the same board, to keep sessions well-organized and tidy. You can even stick the post one on top of the other to organize similar notes or the ones that are relevant to each other. This online whiteboard tool also features an infinite canvas functionality.
Stickies best features
- Incognito mode for sharing thoughts in private
- One-click alignment of sticky notes
- Upvote functionality using +1 button
- Extendable boards with an infinite canvas
Stickies limitations
- No mobile app
- No integrations
Stickies pricing
- Free
Stickies ratings and reviews
- G2: No reviews
- Capterra: No reviews
7. Microsoft Sticky Notes
While it’s not a web-based online sticky notes tool, Microsoft Sticky Notes is a popular, tried-and-tested, and easy online whiteboard solution for organizing your work and your everyday life using virtual post-it notes.
The app is as simple as can be – you can set different colors for the digital sticky notes, do some basic text formatting, and add an image. There’s also a handy notes list view to display all your active stickies.
Microsoft Sticky Notes best features
- Requires no download or install; it comes out of the box with Windows 7 and up
- Extremely easy to use
- List view helps organize digital sticky notes on your desktop
Microsoft Sticky Notes limitations
- No collaboration or integration features
- Sometimes the app fails to launch automatically and notes disappear
- No option to link or map notes
Microsoft Sticky Notes pricing
- Free with Windows
Microsoft Sticky Notes ratings and reviews
- G2: No reviews
- Capterra: No reviews
8. GroupMap
If what you need is virtual sticky notes geared toward brainstorming, check out GroupMap. This real-time online collaboration solution is ideal for events, meetings, conferences, and workshops. The user creates a map and then invites other participants to share their thoughts using a sticky note, after which they can all analyze the results, also in real-time.
GroupMap comes with ready-made templates for Mind Maps, Risk Assessment, SWOT, Agile Retrospectives, and many more.
GroupMap is based on blocks that you can mix and match to create your map: brainstorm, group, survey, vote, rate, position, action, results, etc.
GroupMap best features
- Timer functionality to keep your processes on time and limit the duration
- Several privacy levels for virtual sticky notes (including partial and full anonymity)
- Real-time chats—ideal for your remote team
- Survey and polling
GroupMap limitations
- No voice or video support
- No integrations
- Poor UX on mobile devices
GroupMap pricing
- Basic: $20/month
- Professional: $60/month
- Custom: Ask for quote
GroupMap ratings and reviews
- G2: 4/5 (10 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (15 reviews)
9. Linoit
Lino is an English version of the popular Japanese app Linoit, a free virtual sticky notes board for sharing post-it notes and photos. In addition to the web-based tool, Lino is also available as an iOS and Android app, so it’s excellent for taking notes on the go.
From simple to-do notes and reminders to pinning photos to a canvas, Lino also serves as a functional discussion board for friends, families, and schools.
The canvases can be private or public, and customization options for a sticky note include colors and several font sizes and types.
Linoit best features
- Linoit successfully recreates the feeling of an actual community bulletin board
- Ability to set reminders and due dates for notes
- Photos and videos can be zoomed in and out on this convenient tool
Linoit limitations
- Mobile versions are a bit messy
- User interface is basic and somewhat outdated
- Not particularly suitable for teams looking for a project management solution
- No integrations
Linoit pricing
- Free
- Premium: $3/month for PayPal/Stripe subscriptions, $2.99 for in-app iOS/Android purchases
Linoit ratings and reviews
- G2: No reviews
- Capterra: No reviews
10. Google Jamboard
Fans of the Google Workspace suite probably already know about Google Jamboard; the rest should definitely check it out. This digital interactive whiteboard with handwritten stickies is designed for use with the Jamboard device, which is a 55-inch physical board compatible with Workspace, but it also comes as a web app and a mobile app.
The web and mobile apps allow users to write or draw on jam boards, which can be grouped into sessions and distributed as tabs. They can also search Google, insert images or even web pages, and work on a jamboard using Google Meet.
Projects are presented as slideshows, with 20 frames per jam. Slideshows are automatically saved to Google Drive. Frames themselves represent a blank whiteboard, on which users can draw, write or upload content.
Note that the frames are not simple sticky notes, but there is a note feature with which you can type in text directly. Otherwise, writing a sticky note and freehand drawing is done using a special pen (for those using the Jamboard device), touch screen, mouse, or touchpad.
Google Jamboard best features
- Ideal for professionals and teams who work extensively with the Google Workplace suite
- Boards are very easy to share and collaborate on in brainstorming sessions
- Great for creating slideshows to showcase your best ideas
Google Jamboard limitations
- Limited customization options, lacks flexibility
- Limited export options for post its boards
- Jamboard works best when there’s at least one device per team, and the device is quite expensive
Google Jamboard pricing
- Free desktop and mobile apps
- Device: $4,999 plus $600/year management and support fee
Google Jamboard ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.2/5 (20 reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (97 reviews)
Check out these Jamboard alternatives!
Summarize this article for me pleaseManage Tasks with Online Sticky Notes
The vast world of online sticky note tools offers a range of solutions, from the simplest note-taking applications to complex project management platforms. The best choice will align with your unique needs and workflow.
But what if you could have a tool that flexibly adapts to virtually any requirement you might have? From simple tasks to complex projects, and from individual users to larger teams, ClickUp is a one-stop solution for enhancing your creative process.
Don’t just take our word for it—experience firsthand how ClickUp can revolutionize your approach to digital organization. Discover more about ClickUp’s virtual Whiteboard tool and unlock your productivity potential.
Why wait? Your next level of efficiency is only a click away!
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