The 10 best note-taking apps for iPad in 2025

LiquidText pros:

• Little details like the “mini zoom” window when highlighting text add up to one of the best user experiences of any app I’ve ever tried

• Organized projects with ability to separate team and personal spaces

LiquidText cons:

Turn your iPad into your own personal version of A Beautiful Mind with LiquidText’s organized and streamlined tools for editing long documents. At its core, LiquidText is a PDF markup editor, but in reality, it’s much more than that.

By default, the document is on the left while any highlighted sections, notes, excerpts, links, or other tidbits appear on the right. Anything you highlight or excerpt is linked back to the document for easy referencing later or when you need to go back for context.

The real difference with LiquidText is the ability to connect a note to others, even across projects, creating complex connections between documents that can be visually referenced anytime. No need to take up a whole wall of your living room with post-it notes and red yarn now.

Honestly, I figured LiquidText had a relatively slim use case—lawyers, researchers, and others who review long contracts or technical documents—but found myself enjoying how effortless it is to use. LiquidText has one of the most refined user experiences I’ve tried in any app.

You know when you’re trying to highlight part of a paragraph and either your finger or mouse pointer hits the wrong spot and you can’t seem to select the right part? Just tap and drag with the Apple Pencil, and LiquidText straightens your lines and precisely captures what you meant to in one try. It sounds like a small detail, but LiquidText gets dozens of these small details just right to the point that it feels like the app is assisting you, predicting what you want. It’s a freakishly good user experience.

LiquidText pricing: Free. Premium features such as cross-document linking, multiple workspaces, and more are available for $79.99 one-time per platform or $9.99/month. Unlimited storage and real-time collaboration available on the $17.99/month plan.

Best iPad note-taking app for Markdown power users

Bear (MacOS, iPadOS, iOS)

Bear pros:

Bear cons:

Bear is primarily a text-focused app using Markdown, a syntax language designed for speed and easy exporting to other apps and formats. For those already familiar with Markdown, Bear is a power user’s dream, though Markdown isn’t difficult to learn for newbies either.

As of 2025, Bear also supports Apple Pencil on iPad so you can add sketches or handwritten notes. As with many other note-taking apps, you can’t sketch or write anywhere on the page: you need to add an Apple Pencil “section” to draw within. At first I was confused how to do this as it’s not very intuitive. (Tapping the bold/italic button opens the full formatting menu, where there’s a sketch/pencil icon to use Apple Pencil.) The process to add drawings could be shortened for a better experience.

Surprisingly, Bear was able to decode my messy handwriting and translate it to text quite accurately, which many other apps (and people in my life) struggle to do.

Overall, Bear is a lightweight and efficient note-taking app for power users who primarily type notes and want to quickly format their notes with headings, styles, tags, links, and more. Now with Apple Pencil support, Bear makes sense on the iPad as a solid note-taking solution.

Bear pricing: Free. Premium features such as document scanning, syncing, enhanced search, and more available from $2.99/month.

Best iPad note-taking app for outstanding AI tools

Notes Writer Pro 2025 (MacOS [M1+ only], iPadOS, iOS)

Notes Writer Pro pros:

• The most robust and powerful AI tools built into any note-taking app

• Can handle all formats from text files to imported PDFs, ePUBs, and more

Notes Writer Pro cons:

Notes Writer 2025 now offers ePUB support, more templates, the ability to install your own fonts, and of course, still best-in-class AI tools. It’s like having ChatGPT seamlessly woven into your note-taking workflow, without needing any other app.

At first, it may seem like, “Why bother?” since you can open up ChatGPT or another AI writing tool in a browser window and, if you wanted to, copy and paste content back and forth, right? After testing out Notes Writer Pro 2025, I was blown away by how much easier it is to have this right inside the app. Summarize content, explain concepts, and generate ideas, outlines, and content with a few taps, then insert the parts you want directly into your note or document. Refine it, then export it as a PDF, text file, or share it via email, cloud storage, and more—all in one place.

Plenty of apps have AI tools these days, but none execute it as well, or offer as many options, as Notes Writer Pro 2025. There’s everything from simple text prompt “ask a question, get an answer” output, to grammar and spell-checking, to writing jokes (hey, that’s my job), and translating content into 20 different languages—to name a few. Plus, Notes Writer cut the price of their AI Assistant to just $1.99/month—a mindblowing value.

As for human note-taking,  you can draw and handwrite to your heart’s content inside any note, though the ink and color customization does leave a lot to be desired.

While the more aesthetic approach of Goodnotes entices me, I can’t overlook the sheer value and time-saving features Notes Writer Pro 2025 contains for anyone who works with a lot of text or ideas, from fellow writers and marketers to nearly every modern workplace role. This one is a keeper.

Notes Writer Pro 2025 pricing: $6.99 one-time payment for the app, plus an optional $1.99/month for AI Assistant features.

Best iPad note-taking app for building a second brain

Craft (MacOS, iPadOS, iOS, Windows, Vision OS, Web)

Craft pros:

• Excellent mix of note-taking, project management, and document editing tools to handle notes, tasks, and writing in one app

• Cards turn documents into organized dashboards for multi-page works

Craft cons:

Craft is like a mix between the advanced block functionality and tables of Notion and the simplicity of Apple Notes, all with aesthetically-pleasing customization options and cross-platform syncing. It’s now my main note-taking app after trying so, so many over the years… which says a lot about how good it is.

I love that Craft can do everything. For years I wanted a note-taking app that was as good at formatting text and organizing notes as it was at saving links and creating databases. I used Notion for a long time for these reasons. While Notion is great, its lack of offline sync is a dealbreaker for frequent travel.

Plus, I admit… I’m vain. I want my note-taking app to look sleek. Stylish. Downright pretty, ok? And sorry, Apple Notes, but you’re not pretty either. Craft’s endless customization and style options make it a joy to use, whether writing a simple note, a long document, or creating a multi-tabbed dashboard for content planning. You can add headings, lists, and all the expected stuff, plus checklists, tables, separators, and even Cards, which are “pages within a page” to create highly organized, functional documents. Craft is equally as good at organizing and storing statistics for my work articles as it is at storing my recipe collection. In short, it’s my perfect “second brain.”

Tasks in Craft are well-executed as well, with the ability to add tasks to any document or the Daily Note, accessible from the built-in calendar. Craft keeps track of which documents have active tasks in them so you never forget an important to-do.

Craft’s elegant combination of note formatting, organization, tasks, and add-ons (tables, link cards, and more) make it productive and powerful for notes and long-form writing together—all within an inspiring, gorgeous workspace.

Craft pricing: $9.99/month for individuals or $59.99/month for teams.

Best iPad note-taking app for a paper-like digital planner experience

Zinnia (MacOS, iPadOS, iOS)

Zinnia pros:

• Creative digital planning with Apple and Google Calendar syncing

• Extensive library of templates, stickers, and design elements included for free

Zinnia cons:

If you still like planning your day or month with a paper planner, Zinnia is the closest equivalent of that for the iPad. But wait, Google Calendar fans, there’s something here for you too—the ability to plan like paper while also syncing events to Apple or Google Calendar. Best of both worlds.

Creative expression is at the heart of Zinnia, which asks your font and image style preferences upon signup to tailor the app’s graphics and templates to you. Zinnia’s smart planner templates automatically populate the correct calendar dates, something I haven’t seen in other apps. You can attach events to existing Apple or Google Calendar ones or create new ones right in Zinnia, mixing paper planner fun with the convenience of digital tools. 

The Studio section of the app is where to find your imported stickers and templates, all included in your subscription with regularly updated artist-created collections. Plus, you can type or draw anywhere on the page in Zinnia with an array of customizable sketching, highlighting, and pen tools.

Many other note-taking apps have planning templates but require you to handwrite or type in dates yourself, merely replicating a piece of paper. Zinnia keeps creativity at the forefront of note-taking and planning while incorporating time-saving digital tools, such as calendar integration and syncing across your Mac, iPad, and iPhone.

Zinnia pricing: $9.99/month

Best free iPad note-taking app

Freenotes (MacOS, iPadOS, iOS)

Freenotes pros:

• It’s free!

• Includes advanced features like AI tools, note layers, split screen, and picture-in-picture video

Freenotes cons:

A free note-taking app that includes AI content generation, PDF annotating, in-app split screen, 100+ templates, auto dark mode, layers within notes, custom brushes, and more? Freenotes is the best value there is for note-taking on iPad.

Whether starting a note from a blank page, template, or importing a PDF, Freenotes is easy to use and as well-organized as the big name paid apps. Students will appreciate the ability to watch a video in picture-in-picture mode while taking notes and the layers feature to create quizzes.

Plenty of helpful and unique features make Freenotes stand out, even if it weren’t free, such as being able to select any word and translate it into multiple languages, combine handwritten notes and text anywhere within documents, add custom brushes for sketching or drawing, and even AI content tools. Yep, for free!

If you don’t mind ads, or are willing to pay $9.99 to remove them, Freenotes is a well-rounded and totally free iPad note-taking solution.

Freenotes pricing: Free. Optionally, $9.99 one-time to remove ads.

Other iPad note-taking apps

It’s hard to choose a note-taking app when there are so many options. The truth is, you have to test them to see what works best for you. I believe the ten options above represent the best choices for most people, but there are a few more I enjoyed testing that didn’t make the final cut:

• Milanote: Perfect for creative project planning and remote teams, Milanote combines note-taking with project management flawlessly.

• WinkNotes: Designed for students, WinkNotes creates effortless flashcards for studying.

• Concepts: Perfect for designers, architects, or other technical professionals with its vector-based, precise drawing tools and AutoCAD export.

• Agenda: Another note-taking app that combines notes and calendar tasks together, but with a typing-first approach.

• Standard Notes: An excellent cross-platform choice for text-based notes with a strong commitment to privacy and security.

• Moleskine Smart Writing Set: Automatic physical-to-digital notes that take what you write with their physical pen and transcribe that digitally?! My mind is blown.

Which iPad note-taking app is best for you?

The best iPad notes app for you depends as much on how you like to take notes (keyboard or Apple Pencil?) as on what you take notes about (visual planning or meeting minutes?).

Sure, you can let me tell you what to do by picking one of the apps above. But the best way to find your One True App is to test them all and see which one best fits your workflow needs and—most importantly—your personal style.

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This article was originally published in 2019 by Tim Brookes. The most recent update was in August 2025.