None of the apps below is objectively "the best" — the right one depends on whether you're annotating PDFs, marking up handwritten notes, building a personal knowledge base, or just want somewhere fast and private to jot things down. We'll call out what each is actually known for.
The apps
Widely used by students, and known specifically for handwriting and PDF annotation — you can mark up lecture slides or scanned documents directly with an Apple Pencil. If your note-taking is mostly handwritten or built around annotating existing documents, this is the category it excels in.
Less a notes app than an all-in-one workspace — databases, wikis, project boards, and notes all live in the same tool. Extremely powerful for people who want to build a structured personal or team system, but it comes with a real learning curve and can feel like overkill if you just want to write something down quickly.
Free and built into every iPhone, so there's zero setup involved. It covers the basics well — text, checklists, scanned documents — and syncs across your Apple devices via iCloud. A genuinely solid default for most people, though it's tied to having an iCloud account to get that sync.
Another handwriting-focused app, popular for its realistic paper-and-pen feel and strong PDF markup tools. Like Notability, it's built around the handwritten and annotation use case rather than fast typed notes — a great fit if that's how you naturally take notes.
Our own app, and a deliberately different kind of tool than the others on this list — it doesn't do handwriting or PDF annotation. What it does do is give you a fast, private place for typed notes, checklists, and journal-style entries, with no account required and everything stored on your device. If you want less complexity, not more, and a to-do list alongside your notes rather than a separate app, it's built for exactly that.
What actually matters when choosing one
Feature comparisons only get you so far. These questions narrow things down faster:
- Do you take notes by hand or by typing? If handwriting and PDF markup are central to how you work, Notability or GoodNotes are built specifically for that. If you type, most of that functionality goes unused.
- Do you want a simple notepad, or a full workspace? Notion's databases and structure are powerful for complex projects, but a lot of people just need somewhere fast to write.
- Do you want your notes to sync across devices, or stay private on one? Cloud sync is convenient; keeping everything local and offline is a different, more private trade-off.
- Do you also need a to-do list? Some people are happy juggling a separate notes app and a separate task app. Others would rather have both in one simple place.
Try LOCKEDIN Notes & To-Dos
Free to download. Tasks, checklists and journaled notes — locked in, fully private.
The bottom line
All five of these are genuinely good at what they do — the "best" one depends entirely on how you actually take notes. If that's handwriting or annotating PDFs, Notability and GoodNotes are built for it. If you want a structured workspace, Notion is hard to beat. If you just want a fast, private, no-frills place to type notes, check off tasks, and jot down a journal entry without any of the extra complexity, that's exactly what we built LOCKEDIN Notes & To-Dos for.