Antinote vs Heynote
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Antinote
Mac scratchpad for temporary notes, quick math and checklists
Free trial · from $5 one-time
Where they differ
- Antinote starts at $5 one-time purchase. Heynote is free.
- Heynote has a free plan. Antinote does not, though it has a free trial.
- Only Heynote lists Windows and Linux apps.
- Antinote can be bought with a one-time purchase.
- Antinote also covers Pomodoro timer and menu bar app.
- Heynote also covers Markdown.
In commonmacOSLocal-firstKeyboard-firstNotesCalculator
At a glance
| Antinote | Heynote | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free trial | Free |
| Starts at | $5 one-time purchase | Free |
| Free plan | None | Every build on the site is a direct download with no price, account or license key. There is no paid edition. |
| Free trial | Free trial download with no account needed; the site does not state its length | None listed |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| Made by | Cmd-N Studios Inc. | Jonatan Heyman |
| Price read from | antinote.io | heynote.com |
| Checked | Oct 9, 2026 | Oct 9, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Antinote
- Mac users who want a throwaway pad beside their main notes app
- Quick sums, conversions and what-if calculations written in words
- Keyboard-driven users of Raycast or Alfred
Heynote
- Developers who need a holding place for JSON, logs and code snippets
- Quick calculations and unit conversions next to working notes
- People who want scratch notes kept as plain files on their own disk
Worth knowing
Antinote
- It runs on macOS 14 or later only. The vendor plans no Windows or Linux version; an iOS app is in development with an October 2026 release date.
- Notes are plain text with no fonts, colors or styles, and the vendor says very long notes get laggy.
- There are no folders or tags: it is built for short-lived notes that get exported elsewhere when worth keeping.
- iCloud sync, added in version 2.0, is optional and off until switched on; notes otherwise stay in a local SQLite database.
Heynote
- Desktop only: there is no mobile app, and the author says one is out of scope for now.
- No sync of its own. The docs suggest a file-syncing service such as Dropbox and warn that editing one buffer on two machines at once can cause conflicts.
- The Windows build is not code-signed, so Windows may show a warning when installing it.
- The code is under the MIT license with the Commons Clause, which does not allow selling the software.
Key features
Antinote
- Swipe-through temporary notes
- A two-finger swipe moves between notes, and swiping past the newest one starts another. Notes can delete themselves, and there are no folders or tags to manage.
- Plain text with paste cleanup
- Notes are plain text with simple Markdown. Pasting strips formatting, bullets and indentation, pasted links are shortened, and a dropped image becomes text through macOS OCR.
- Inline math and conversions
- With math on the first line, calculations are worked out as you type beside your own wording. Named variables recalculate, and currencies, crypto, distances and weights convert inline.
- Checklists, timers and AutoPaste
- Other first-line keywords change what a note does: list makes a checklist, timer runs a stopwatch, countdown or pomodoro, and paste collects everything copied afterwards.
- Global hotkey and display modes
- Option-A brings the app up from inside any other app. It can live in the Dock, the menu bar or a dropdown, show over full-screen apps and be pinned on top.
- Export and automation
- A note can be sent to Apple Notes, Obsidian or Bear, or exported as txt, Markdown or PDF. URL schemes, Shortcuts, Raycast, Alfred and JavaScript extensions can drive the app.
Heynote
- Buffers divided into blocks
- A buffer is a persistent stretch of text split into blocks. One keystroke adds a block, and select-all picks the current block first, then the whole buffer.
- A language for each block
- Each block has its own language, detected automatically or set by hand, with syntax highlighting for more than 30 languages and auto-formatting for JSON, JavaScript, HTML, CSS and Markdown.
- Math blocks
- A math block works as a calculator pad with variables, functions and unit and currency conversion. It is built on Math.js expressions.
- Multiple buffers
- Besides the default Scratch buffer you can create any number of buffers, open them in tabs, sort them into directories and search across them. Each one is a .txt file on disk.
- Inline images with markup
- Images pasted or dropped into a buffer appear inline, can be resized and annotated with a freehand drawing tool, and copied back to the clipboard.
- Keyboard control
- Default, Emacs-like or custom key bindings, a command palette, multi-cursor editing and an optional global hotkey that shows or hides the app.
Plans
Antinote
Antinote$5
one-time purchase
A license for the Mac app with lifetime updates and no subscription. Requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.
Heynote
Heynote$0
The full app as Mac Universal, Arm and Intel builds, a Windows installer, and an AppImage or Snap for Linux.
Ways to pay less
Antinote
- Other savings
Free license for charity donors and volunteers
The FAQ says that describing a donation you made or volunteer work you did in the #charity-offer channel on the Antinote Discord earns a free lifetime license.
Heynote
No public discounts listed.
