Noteful vs Noteshelf

Noteful

• iPad users who write with Apple Pencil and prefer to pay once
• Annotating PDFs, slides and textbooks on separate layers
• Organizing handwritten notes by tag as well as by folder

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

Noteful

• Made for iPad and iPhone only. The App Store shows it as "Designed for iPad. Not verified for macOS", and no Android, Windows or web version is offered.
• Layers and sync between devices are locked until the Noteful Pro upgrade is bought.
• The App Store listing requires iOS or iPadOS 16.4 or later.

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.

Noteful

Vector ink for Apple Pencil

A custom ink engine turns strokes into high-resolution vector ink, with ballpoint pen, fountain pen and highlighter brushes and recognition of geometric shapes.

PDF and document markup

PDFs and Microsoft Office documents import into a notebook for annotation alongside images, shapes and typed text, and the annotated pages export as PDF.

Tags and nested tags

Writing #tag or #nested/tag anywhere in a notebook files it. Notebooks and pages can be browsed by tag, and tags can be renamed, deleted or reassigned.

Layers

Annotations can sit on separate layers that are hidden, shown and rearranged independently, leaving the original content unchanged. Layers are a Noteful Pro feature.

Audio recording

Audio can be recorded while taking notes, and the playback position is synced with the notes written at that moment.

Sync across iPhone and iPad

Noteful Pro syncs notebooks between a user's iPhone and iPad devices. The listing says notebooks synced with iCloud are encrypted via account-based keys.

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.

Noteful

• Noteful$0

  Free to use without a time limit, minus the features the App Store listing marks as Pro: layers and sync across iPhone and iPad.

• Noteful Pro, Lifetime$6.99

  one-time in-app purchase on the US App Store

  Unlocks the Pro features for good, including layers and sync to all of a user's iPhone and iPad devices.

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.

Noteful

• Lifetime license

  Noteful Pro as a one-time purchase

  The App Store listing says Noteful Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks its features forever, listed in the US as Noteful Pro, Lifetime at $6.99.

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.