7 Best Free iPad Note Taking Apps in 2025

Seven apps claim to be the best free iPad note taking app. Only one of them is embarrassed about its own name, and honestly, that might be the most honest thing in this list.

Let's get into it.

Why iPad Note-Taking Is a Whole Different Problem

Your iPad is not your laptop. It is not your phone. It is this glorious middle-ground device that Apple keeps insisting you should use for "real work" while also selling you a $129 pencil to draw little stars in the margins of your grocery list.

The result is that note-taking on iPad has unique demands: Apple Pencil support, split-screen compatibility, iCloud sync that actually works, and ideally an app that doesn't cost more per year than a gym membership you won't use. Most people want a free iPad note taking app that grows with them. A few of them eventually hit a wall and pay for an upgrade. This post is for both types.

Before we rank anything, here is the honest truth about "free": nearly every serious note-taking app has a free tier that is either genuinely useful or a glorified demo. We will flag which is which.

The App That Started This Whole Mess (and Why We Left)

I've used Evernote for over a decade. Spent thousands of dollars on it. Loved it, then watched the price climb past anything reasonable.

That sentence is not a takedown. Evernote is a genuinely remarkable piece of software. The team that built it solved hard problems around search, cross-device sync, and document organization before most people knew those problems existed. If you talked to a productivity nerd in 2012, Evernote was basically a personality trait.

The problem was never the product. The problem was the pricing trajectory.

Evernote's current tiers look like this:

| Plan | Annual Price | Monthly Equivalent | |---|---|---| | Evernote Free | $0 | $0 (limited to 1 notebook, 50 notes) | | Evernote Starter | $99.96/yr | ~$8.33/mo | | Evernote Personal | $129.99/yr | ~$10.83/mo | | Evernote Professional | $169.99/yr | ~$14.17/mo |

For anyone who just needed a reliable place to dump notes, clip web pages, and sync across devices, watching the entry-level paid plan cross the $100/year mark felt like paying fine-dining prices for a sandwich you used to get at the corner deli. A great sandwich! But still.

That frustration is where Noteshik came from. (Yes, that name. We know. Our budget was so tight we couldn't afford a good one. We will address this at the end of the post and we are genuinely asking for your help.)

The 7 Best Free iPad Note Taking Apps, Ranked Honestly

1. Apple Notes

Let's be real: Apple Notes is the dark horse that quietly became excellent. It is free, pre-installed, syncs via iCloud instantly, and as of recent iOS updates supports tags, smart folders, linked notes, and even basic collaboration. Apple Pencil support is solid, handwriting recognition works, and the lock feature uses Face ID.

The catch: it is an Apple ecosystem app. Android users are effectively locked out, and if you ever want to leave Apple, exporting your notes is not exactly a joy.

Best for: People who live in Apple products and want zero friction. Free tier quality: Genuinely great, no hidden wall.

2. Notion

Notion is the app that promises to replace every other app and mostly delivers on that chaos. The free tier is generous for personal use, and the iPad app has improved dramatically. Databases, kanban boards, linked notes, and a growing AI layer make it feel like a productivity platform rather than just a note taker.

The catch: Notion is a bit like a Swiss Army knife that also contains a full kitchen. If you just want to write something down, the overhead can feel massive. Also, offline access on mobile is limited on the free tier.

Best for: Power users building a second brain. Free tier quality: Good, but performance on older iPads can drag.

3. Noteshik

Okay, yes, we built this one. And yes, the name sounds like a minor medical procedure or possibly a Slavic term of endearment that did not translate well. We have made peace with it.

Noteshik was built by people who genuinely loved Evernote and needed something that worked the same way without requiring them to renegotiate their budget every year. The result is an app that handles notebooks, tags, rich text, PDF annotation, web clipping, and Apple Pencil input. It also includes AI summarization and smart search at every paid tier, which Evernote reserves for its top plan.

| Plan | Annual Price | Key Features | |---|---|---| | Noteshik Free | $0 | Unlimited notes, 2 notebooks, sync across 2 devices | | Noteshik Pro | $24.99/yr | Unlimited notebooks, unlimited devices, AI, PDF annotation |

That Pro price is 75% less than Evernote Personal and includes AI that Evernote charges $169.99/yr to access. The free tier is genuinely usable rather than a hostage situation.

Best for: Evernote refugees who want familiar workflows at sane prices. Free tier quality: Real, usable, not a demo.

4. Google Keep

Google Keep is the sticky-note app that grew up a little but not too much. It is fast, colorful, cross-platform, and deeply integrated with Google Workspace. Checklists, voice notes, image notes, and automatic transcription of handwriting from photos are all in the free tier.

The catch: it is not a notebook system. There are no folders, no nesting, no real hierarchy. If your brain organizes information in lists, Keep is perfect. If you think in notebooks and subtopics, you will spend a lot of time staring at a wall of colorful cards wondering where you put that thing.

Best for: Quick capture and checklist addicts. Free tier quality: Excellent, no paid tier exists at all.

5. Obsidian

Obsidian is for people who want their notes to feel like a personal Wikipedia. Everything is linked, everything is in Markdown, and the graph view that shows how your notes connect to each other is genuinely beautiful in a slightly unsettling way.

The local-first approach means your notes live on your device by default, which either feels like a feature (privacy!) or a bug (what about my other devices?). Sync across devices requires a paid add-on at $4/month.

Best for: Writers, researchers, and people who enjoy building systems. Free tier quality: Strong for single-device users.

6. GoodNotes 6

GoodNotes is the choice for people who want their iPad to feel like a real notebook. It is primarily a handwriting app, and it is exceptional at that job. Apple Pencil input is buttery smooth, handwriting-to-text conversion is accurate, and the template library for notebooks and planners is enormous.

The free tier allows 3 notebooks, which is enough to evaluate whether the app is right for you. The full version is a one-time purchase of $9.99, which is a rarity in this landscape.

Best for: Students, bullet journalers, and analog-at-heart types. Free tier quality: Limited but honest about what it is.

7. Simplenote

Simplenote is exactly what it sounds like. No formatting beyond Markdown, no image embedding, no attachments. Just text, synced everywhere, forever, for free. It is made by Automattic (the WordPress people), which means it will probably exist for a very long time.

If you have ever felt overwhelmed by feature-heavy apps and wanted something that just gets out of the way, Simplenote will feel like a warm glass of water. Completely free, no paid tier.

Best for: Writers who want distraction-free text capture. Free tier quality: The whole app is the free tier.

How to Actually Choose (Without Getting Analysis Paralysis)

Here is a simple filter:

If you handwrite everything, start with GoodNotes 6. If you live in Google Workspace, start with Google Keep. If you came from Evernote and miss the notebook structure but not the price, start with Noteshik. If you want to build a knowledge system, start with Obsidian or Notion. If you just want to write, start with Simplenote or Apple Notes.

The trap most people fall into is choosing based on feature lists rather than actual workflow. The best free iPad note taking app is the one you open without thinking about it.

What "Free" Actually Costs You

Every free tier has a real cost, even if it is not money. Sometimes the cost is storage limits. Sometimes it is a device cap. Sometimes it is knowing that a service depends on venture capital funding and a future pricing change is basically inevitable.

The most sustainable free apps are either fully free by design (Google Keep, Simplenote) or backed by a paid tier that makes the business viable long-term (Apple Notes via hardware, Noteshik via Pro subscriptions). When an app's free tier is so restricted it practically pushes you into paying, that is not generosity. That is a funnel.

We tried to build Noteshik's free tier to be genuinely useful. Unlimited notes, basic sync, the core experience. The paid tier unlocks more devices, more notebooks, and AI features. You can decide if the upgrade is worth it without feeling like the app is holding your notes for ransom.

One Last Thing: Please Help Us Name This App

Noteshik. We know. It sounds like something a doctor says before a minor injection. It sounds like a word that exists in another language and means something we definitely did not intend. We named it during a period when we were spending all our money on building the product instead of branding, and now we live with the consequences.

Here is the deal: we are planning a rebrand sometime in the next year. And instead of paying a naming agency what they would charge for something we could absolutely get wrong again anyway, we want to use a name suggested by an actual user of the product.

Leave a comment below or email us at [email protected] with your best rebrand suggestion. Serious, funny, completely unhinged. We will read all of them. We will actually use one of yours. The person whose name we pick gets a free lifetime Pro account, and we will credit you in the announcement post.

You literally cannot do worse than Noteshik. The bar is on the floor. We believe in you.