Microsoft OneNote vs Noteshelf

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

Noteshelf

• Students and teachers taking handwritten notes with a stylus
• Marking up PDFs, slides and scanned documents
• Planners and journals built from ready-made templates

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.

Noteshelf

• The Free tier is limited to 3 notebooks, and handwriting recognition and search require Premium.
• Pricing differs by platform: $7.99 on the Microsoft Store, a $9.99 one-time upgrade on Android, and subscriptions or a lifetime purchase on the App Store.
• The App Store shows several yearly Premium prices between $19.99 and $49.99, so the price offered inside the app may vary.
• Sync uses iCloud on Apple devices and Google Drive on Android; the listings do not describe syncing between the two.

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.

Noteshelf

Handwritten notes

Write with pens and highlighters modeled on real ones, turn rough strokes into clean shapes, and use a zoom box for precise writing.

Handwriting recognition

Converts handwriting to text and searches handwritten notes in 65 languages. Recognition and search are part of Premium.

PDF and document annotation

Import PDFs, documents, slides and images, then highlight, underline and write on them. A built-in scanner digitizes paper documents.

Audio recording

Record lectures or meetings while taking notes and replay them later. The Apple version can also record from an Apple Watch.

Noteshelf AI

Generates handwritten notes on a topic, summarizes pages, translates text and explains terms, drawing on a monthly allowance of AI credits.

Sync and backup

iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac, Google Drive sync between Android devices, and automatic backup to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or WebDAV.

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.

Noteshelf

• Free$0

  3 notebooks with unlimited pages, hundreds of templates and Noteshelf AI for text with 30 monthly credits.

• Noteshelf for Windows$7.99

  one-time purchase on the Microsoft Store

  The Windows app for stylus devices, with handwritten and typed notes, audio recording, PDF annotation and handwriting search.

• Premium (Android)$9.99

  one-time purchase; local pricing may apply

  Unlimited notebooks, configurable digital diaries, handwriting recognition and search, and 100 monthly AI credits.

• Premium (iPhone, iPad and Mac)$7.99 to $49.99

  in-app purchase: weekly, monthly, yearly or lifetime

  The US App Store lists Weekly at $7.99, Monthly at $9.99, Yearly at prices from $19.99 to $49.99, and a Lifetime purchase at $14.99.

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.

Noteshelf

• Lifetime license

  One-time Premium purchase

  Premium is a one-time $9.99 fee on Android, and the US App Store lists a Lifetime Premium in-app purchase at $14.99 next to its subscriptions.

• Education

  Reduced prices for schools and businesses

  Noteshelf 3 is offered to schools and businesses at reduced prices through Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager.

• Other savings

  30% off Premium for Samsung Galaxy users

  The Android page advertises 30% off the Premium upgrade as an offer exclusive to Samsung Galaxy users.