Microsoft OneNote vs MyScript Notes

Microsoft OneNote

• People who already have a Microsoft account or a Microsoft 365 subscription
• Handwritten notes and sketches with a pen or stylus
• Teachers and students working in Class Notebooks
• Free note-taking across Windows, Mac, phones and the web

MyScript Notes

• Stylus users who want handwriting turned into typed text
• Students revising with AI summaries and quizzes
• Handwritten math, diagrams and PDF annotation

Microsoft OneNote

• A free Microsoft account stops at 5 GB of cloud storage, shared with OneDrive files and Outlook.com attachments.
• Only the Windows desktop app can keep notebooks on a local hard drive; the other versions work with cloud notebooks.
• Microsoft 365 AI features are limited to the subscription owner, with usage limits, even on the Family plan.
• Microsoft lists apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android but none for Linux, where OneNote is browser-only.

MyScript Notes

• The free version limits notebooks to five pages each and leaves out cloud sync and AI features.
• It is sold only through the App Store and Google Play, and the vendor's own pricing page lists plan types without prices.
• On Windows the app is still Nebo: a separate Microsoft Store purchase that syncs with MyScript Notes but gets no new features.
• Family Sharing is not supported, because each user needs their own MyScript account.

Microsoft OneNote

Typed, handwritten and scanned notes

Pages hold typed text, digital ink from a pen or stylus, pictures and videos. The mobile app also scans documents and extracts their text.

Voice transcription and dictation

Voice transcription captures spoken notes for later review, and the iPhone and iPad app takes dictation in 27 languages, some of them in preview.

Copilot in OneNote

Copilot responds to prompts to draft plans, generate ideas, create lists and organize information. Microsoft 365 plans include the desktop apps with Copilot, subject to usage limits.

Sharing and collaboration

Notebooks are cloud-connected, so they can be shared with other people and opened on a PC, a Mac, a phone, a tablet or in a browser.

Web Clipper

A free browser add-on for Edge and Chrome captures web content into a notebook, where it can be edited, annotated and shared.

Class and Staff Notebooks

Class Notebook gives each student a personal workspace, a content library for handouts and a collaboration space. Staff Notebook does the same for school teams.

MyScript Notes

Handwriting recognition

Recognizes handwriting in 66 languages and converts it to typed text. Search covers handwritten content, text in diagrams and PDF annotations.

Pen gestures

Edit with the pen instead of menus: scratch out to erase, underline to emphasize, and add or remove space between lines.

Four note formats

Notebooks with fixed-size pages, documents that reflow with the screen, boards on an expandable canvas, and imported PDFs for annotation.

Math and diagrams

Solves simple handwritten calculations, copies math as LaTeX or an image, and turns hand-drawn diagrams into shapes that stay editable in PowerPoint.

Generative AI study tools

Summarize notes, explain a selected term, turn a note into a quiz or chat with an assistant. AI study sets are on iOS, with Android to follow.

Cloud sync and export

Paid plans sync through iCloud (iOS only), Google Drive or Dropbox with a free MyScript account. Notes export as PDF, PNG, SVG or Word.

Microsoft OneNote

• OneNote$0

  The standalone app on Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, used with a free Microsoft account and its 5 GB of cloud storage.

• Microsoft 365 Personal$9.99

  per month, or $99.99 per year

  For 1 person: 1 TB of cloud storage and the OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook desktop apps with Copilot, on up to 5 devices at once.

• Microsoft 365 Family$12.99

  per month, or $129.99 per year

  For 1 to 6 people, with 1 TB of storage per person (up to 6 TB). AI features are for the subscription owner only.

• Microsoft 365 Premium$19.99

  per month, or $199.99 per year

  Everything in Family, plus extensive Copilot chat usage, agentic AI features for research and analytics, and more AI image creation.

MyScript Notes

• Free$0

  A limited version with notebooks of up to five pages each and no cloud sync or AI features.

• Full Access$1.99 to $29.99

  monthly, yearly or lifetime; the listing does not say which is which

  The US App Store lists three Full Access purchases at $1.99, $7.99 and $29.99. Paid plans add AI features and cloud sync, on up to 10 devices.

Microsoft OneNote

• Annual discount

  About 17% lower cost with yearly billing

  Microsoft 365 Personal is $99.99 per year against $9.99 per month ($119.88 over twelve months). Family and Premium show the same gap between yearly and monthly prices.

• Education

  Free Office 365 Education for students and educators

  Microsoft's education site says students and educators with a valid school email address are eligible for Office 365 Education, which includes OneNote, at no cost.

MyScript Notes

• Lifetime license

  Lifetime purchase instead of a subscription

  Next to the monthly and yearly subscriptions there is a one-time lifetime purchase with all future updates. One purchase covers up to 10 iOS and Android devices.